


wunderkinder

by Nadler



Category: Men's Basketball RPF, Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Arranged Marriage, Hockey Big Bang, M/M, Magical Realism, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-02 00:22:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20947556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nadler/pseuds/Nadler
Summary: The pick lottery is in the Stars' favor, and Rich Peverley almost can't breathe when he sees the results. There was never any doubt about who they were going to take, and everyone, from Jim Nill to Les Jackson to the apprenticing soothsayer, is in agreement.The Stars draft Miro Heiskanen third overall in his draft. It's the only choice they can make, and it is a pivotal one.Luka Dončić might be the most known quantity, of all basketball prospects. He is Slovenian. He is very, very good at basketball. He sees the court in ways that someone wouldn't expect a boy to. Lightning calls to him and cradles him in its magic.The lottery is not in the Mavericks' favor, but they have never been afraid of going after what they need. They traded for Dirk Nowitzki on a magicweaver's warning, and they trade for Luka in the same way. The bias against players from Europe, the bias against players with magic of their own; those things work in the Mavs' favor, but two spots is hard enough to wait for him.





	wunderkinder

**Author's Note:**

> So. Happy Mavs opening night! This is absolutely something no one but me wants, and here it is. 25k. 
> 
> A huge thanks to everyone I bothered with this ship, for putting up with basketball in a hockey chat, for putting up with sports in a non sports chat, and for holding my hand. Thanks to everyone who read this over and told me to finish. You're great. 
> 
> Thank. You're the best.

A city's magic is carefully managed and nurtured by the faith of the fans, the rituals of the players, and the magicweavers of the leagues. A city's sports-magic is as vibrant and alive as the elements themselves and can die on the pavement of dejected streets. The magic is stronger and thicker in professional sports, but everyone can feel it--a tingle of exhilaration and joy for the love of the game. The most important part of sports-magic is faith and the desire to play.

Miro makes his dedications to the ice, like any other hockey player. He knows justs as well as anyone that magic doesn't lie, and it expects nothing less than the truth. Miro's not magic; he skates and puck-handles and he plays and he thinks he might want to do this forever. 

"When it stops being fun," his dad tells him, "then you stop." 

He doesn't plan to stop anytime soon.

* * *

At training camp, Roope nudges his shoulder against Miro's, "Better get going; a suit called you. It might be important. It's a Jim." 

Jim Nill is the GM. Jim Montgomery is their coach. Jim _Lites_ is not helpful, when Miro gets called into his office. It's weird; it's not like he's going to fire Miro, but Miro fidgets in his chair and feels like a scolded schoolboy. This is a business. Miro is either going to play here or be sent back. Still, this doesn't seem like the best way to tell him that they want him to go back to Finland for another year. __

Miro tries to find the words to ask, but then Lites just leans across his desk and goes forward with it. "You're getting married." 

"No?" Miro asks, in case that was a question. Tone has been difficult so far, and English is not his favorite right now. "I would know."

"You're getting married," Lites elaborates, frowning. "Because we need you to. It shouldn't be a problem, and you agreed already, of course. It's in your contract. The signs are there, and we've made sure everything aligns." 

A pause. Miro does not have anything to say to that, and he probably looks a little like a fish right now. 

"It'll be a sports marriage, of course." Lites nods, like it was a given. 

Sports marriages are rare. They're _telling Miro_ he has to get married. For sports. For _hockey_. 

"Why, uh," and Miro barely gets the word out before Lites hisses, "_Not here!_ We'll fit you in the soothsayer's schedule sooner than later, but you must be ready for this."

That's not unusual. You see a trainer and doctors if you get hurt. You see a curse specialist if you get cursed. It doesn't happen a lot, but the general malaise and bad luck curses are easy enough to unintentionally spread. "Do you -- who?" Miro asks, when the sinking feeling in his stomach dies down a little. That's enough to make him swallow a small lump in his throat. He doesn't know anyone on the Stars, aside from Julius, from Worlds and only a little, and Roope's probably going to make the team but that's not good odds. A stranger, then, and they'll have to play good hockey. It could be worse. 

"Luka Dončić," Lites says, to Miro's confusion. Who the fuck is that? "He plays basketball. You should like him. He's your age. It's his rookie year, too."

Basketball. He's not getting married for hockey. Sport marriages are rare. Cross-sport marriages are rarer.

* * *

Luka isn't an expert in magic; his is mostly instinctual and elemental--it is a part of him, and he doesn't think too hard about it. He has lightning with him, always, and more than a few fans.

"So I should hope that Dirk plays forever, yeah?" he jokes, when they tell him. Luka doesn't like the plan, but they walk him through it, and he understands, a little. He doesn't have to be happy about it, so he's entited to make some fun. 

The look he gets is not amused. And then they tell him about Miro and the plans for them.

This is kind of a big deal. Dallas's magic is down to the Mavs and the Stars, proper, as its core. The Cowboys and the Rangers, FC Dallas and the Rattlers, the college teams--those teams feed into Dallas's magic, but not enough, not directly. The Mavs need a franchise player, but the city needs more than that. Magic is bonds and connections, and Luka was ready to do his normal rituals and maybe add a few more. He wouldn't kiss the court, but maybe he'd get a new tattoo. 

A marriage is different from those offerings. 

A marriage is a ritual. It is one that is ongoing and continual. Every athlete knows rituals, if only to say they don't need them, that they only need the game itself to speak for their dedication. But his isn't as clear cut as never lying during a ritual. Luka always dedicates every new pair of shoes he wears on the court, and he promises never to hold back, ever, and that's enough to be true to the spirit of basketball. 

Magic needs truth, and magic is always true. To do something for the game is different from living it. 

Luka's always been good at that, though.

* * *

No one prepares Miro for meeting Luka Dončić. He's summoned to the American Airlines Center, just after Stars media day.

Miro isn't quite sure it's worth all the fuss of the cameras, but he won't say it in front of the very tall basketball player. Miro dresses in full gear, and Miro feels like he's going to melt in front of the camera. The ice is covered up. The surface here is smaller than he's used to, already. The basketball court looks positively constricting. 

There is a single basketball player on the court. He's hard to miss. 

It isn't hard to stop and watch him--Luka--do something with the basketball in his hands. He jogs down the court and up goes the ball and it goes in, of course, and the edge of whatever tattoo was on his shoulder rippled under the white sleeveless basketball jersey, and he turns and laughs the laugh of someone who's self-satisfied and confident in himself. Miro hasn't met Luka Dončić before, and Miro would remember if he had, definitely. Not only because he's tall--maybe as tall as Bish or taller--but there's also this sort of light in his eyes.

The flash goes off, and Miro wonders if he's in the shot, watching from the wings. 

Someone gets Luka a towel. He puts it over his head. 

"They make a big deal of you," Miro says, haltingly, in lieu of trying to fake small talk about a sport he doesn't care much about and in English to boot. He knows this guy went third in his draft, like Miro, because someone made a little joke about it being Dallas's lucky number. What can he even say? Miro doesn't know much about basketball technique. He recognized good form because it was easy, and a pro should have good form. It probably was true. He assumes Luka knows as much as he does, and Miro doesn't want to be the one to break the news that they're _getting married for Dallas sports-magic_ to him if he doesn't. 

Miro doesn't have a favorite basketball team. Everyone knows about Michael Jordan, Kobe, LeBron; they're worldwide names. There is also one Finnish guy in the whole NBA, who was a rookie last year. He thinks he plays for Chicago. That's about all Miro knows. 

Luka laughs. It's a nervous, small thing, different from the player in front of him, but the sentiment echoes until Miro almost thinks he can touch it. Palpable, in the air. "Maybe they should. They say the same."

Strangely, Miro wants to smile back; maybe the Americans and their habit of smiling at everything was getting to him. 

The photographer fusses until the pose is right, or right enough, and they make Miro put on his skates because they want full body shots. Luka is still a head taller than Miro, even with skates, and Miro is not a small dude himself. Luka's not his first image of a basketball player: he's big, but he also looks solid enough to take a hit, not a beanpole. But seeing him shoot a ball, he could be nothing else. 

When they're done, Miro takes off his gloves and puts them down next to his stick. Miro doesn't know what to say. 'Hi, so we're getting married?'

A moment passes. Luka asks, "Do you like dogs?" 

Miro nods and pulls out his phone to scroll for photos of his. He finds a picture of Leo lolling on a rug at his last place. 

"Me too." A smile breaks out across Luka's face, and he laughs suddenly, and Miro braces for a small dog joke that doesn't come. Luka ends up pulling up _ his_ dog's Insta, and while Hugo is not as cute as Leo, Luka has great taste in dogs. 

Miro doesn't like Luka; he doesn't not like him, either. Miro barely knows the guy, and it's not anyone's fault. They have, he learns, about five languages between them, and Miro's not sure if they should count English. He'll get some practice. 

But Luka can't be that bad if he likes pomeranians.

* * *

They move in together.

One of the alternatives is that at least one of them or maybe both of them would stay with the captain. Miro thinks he dodged many bullets by not staying with Jamie, and apparently, basketball teams don't have captains--or at least the Mavericks don't--which hampers that plan.

"And besides," someone's front office noted. It might have been Tom from the Stars or Cynthia from the Mavs, and honestly, all the people trying to deal with this are starting to blend together for Miro. "It's 2019. You can have a modern courtship."

A modern courtship. The less Miro thinks about that, the better.

Luka salts the threshold of their apartment before they're officially allowed to move their stuff in. Then he breaks the line with his foot, and Miro swears he can see a crackle of bright white light underneath his shoe. It makes the hair on Miro's arm tingle, and he straightens up. "What's this?" 

"Just me," Luka says. "The furniture won't get static. I'm not going to burn the place." 

Miro blinks.

"Spark tricks." Luka opens his hand, and Miro can feel _something_, and there's a little spark dancing across his palm, too bright to even look at. Luka smiles, disarmingly, and he tossles the dying spark through his hair. "That's what I can do." 

All of Luka's branding--and how conceited must a guy be to have his own _brand_\--is his name and lightning bolts. It's over his bags and more than a few of his shirts. It makes sense, now. Miro can't believe he missed something that obvious.

"_Magic_," Miro says, and he barely remembers how to breathe. It's not super rare, but you don't meet that person every day. 

"Pretty cool, yeah?" Luka looks too pleased with himself, but Miro can't blame him, and the sparks reflect in his eyes, and--_oh_.

Luka's not the first person Miro's met with magic, but none of them have quite the same spark. He doesn't have another word for it. Miro's never bought into the hype about there being a draw towards magic, though whatever Sebastian Aho's _thing_ is might explain a lot about his fans. Magic attracts, they say, and magic is special.

But maybe it makes sense, a little. Miro doesn't like thinking too hard about things. It'll happen or it won't, and magic is one of those things, and Miro's never wondered what it was like to have magic anymore than the feel of the ice under his skates and the roar of the crowd, but it can't be that different. 

Luka carries that with him. 

Miro brings his suitcase and his hockey bag and his dog, and that's all he really needs. Esa promised him that he'd take Miro shopping, later, and then Julius said he'd make sure that Esa would actually take him places where the clothes were wearable. And like, the preseason and season start, so it's almost too late to find another place and make arrangements for his dog. Tyler Seguin knows a place, but---

Luka's mom offers to hold them if they were both gone. 

If this didn't happen, maybe he'd have moved in with Esa or Julius or gotten a place where Roope sleeps on the couch during his time up in the NHL. Instead, he gets Luka and Hugo, and Esa's kind of scared of dogs, so it might be better in the long run. 

Besides that, Luka's not a bad roommate. 

They play FIFA, once or twice on the rare preseason occasion when Miro's in the apartment. Sometimes, Luka leans back in his gaming chair, Hugo in his lap, and Miro can't help but laugh when half of his fur ends up in a static-y mess, and Hugo whines, but he doesn't shy away from Luka's touch.

* * *

Luka likes what he likes, and that's playing games, hanging out, looking at new shoes. He figures Miro has a pretty similar list, except for the playing basketball part. 

Luka's not sure about the public courtship angle of their whole thing. He's not sure of Miro, either, but at least they seem even on that ground. 

_They_ have to do it right; Miro isn't particularly happy when they get told that they want to shoot a video in their barely settled in apartment, probably less so than Luka is. The marriage is not meant to be a secret, per se, but they'll put out the official announcement soon, and the more footage they have, the more choices the teams have to play the media angles.

The cameras catch Miro playing one of the NHL videogames in their living room. He's trash-talking whoever he's playing over the headset--something that's universally recognized, no matter what language--and Luka walks over with the dogs, just as the game ends. 

They film Luka and Miro walking their dogs, and the cameraperson even says, cheerily, "I like that you match," and that's the little bit that Luka even puts on his Insta. 

He tags Hugo and Miro in it, and that's how the internet first gets any clue of it. Maybe they need to make an account for Leo, too.

* * *

Miro knows they told Jamie Benn about it because Jamie sends an awkward congratulatory text. It's going to be public soon, but it's a _sports marriage_. It's not like he's getting married to his high school sweetheart. It's not like it's happening next week. Probably.

Jamie Benn takes him out to lunch one day, out of some sort of captainly duty, and his captain spends the time between the waiter going to get their drinks and taking their order frowning at the menu. He eventually looks at Miro and says, "I'm your captain." 

"Yes," and Miro knows that. He honestly hopes that Jamie has more in terms of conversation than this. 

"Just, you know, I have everyone's backs. If there's anything, uh. It will work out." Jamie is really trying, and Miro kind of hopes this isn't his captain voice or how he gives peptalks. Still, the sentiment is nice. After a pause, Jamie stresses, "And Spezz gives good advice. He's a dad." 

"I'll--" and Miro is being honest here. For obvious reasons, he adds, "I talk to Esa." 

Jamie lets out a sound of relief. "Probably your best idea. But if you can't, or if Esa and you aren't talking, I'm here. Or Klinger, he can work out defense politics with you." 

Miro takes a moment to work that out. He doesn't think there are any defense politics, other than the Finns outnumber Klinger. "Yeah, that's fine." 

"When's, uh, when's the wedding?" 

"I don't know," Miro says, quietly. Magic doesn't lie, and any ritual needs to be true. "When it can be, I guess." 

"That's some big magic theory stuff, right?" Jamie scratches his head. "That was never my best subject in school." 

"Me neither," and Miro lets out a little nervous laughter.

Relieved that he doesn't have to do any more serious talking, Jamie loosens up and talks about how the fries are here (good) and maybe getting everyone out to a baseball game before the old ballpark closes. 

Miro thinks he should say something, but Jamie doesn't seem to mind his small comments that mean nothing.

* * *

Once Rads makes a mention of liking basketball and wanting to go to a game, Miro knows he is never going to know peace. Miro doesn't know what he feels about everyone going along with it. Luka is his boy, kind of, because he has to be. It's a sports marriage. It's not like it's _real. _

They all know this, but it's more fun to poke at Miro and his situation, maybe, or someone's said something to everyone. Miro doesn't know. 

"When are we seeing your boy?" Pitty asks. And then the floodgates open. Everyone has an opinion on Miro's marriage. Not yet marriage. Engagement.

Fuck, Miro thinks. That's the word.

"It's romantic," someone says. "Magic works out for the best. Like destined shit, so, your boy's going to be around."

Julius rolls his eyes, and he says, "You've been watching too many movies. Magic's magic."

"And we're supposed to just take your word?" 

"Yes, that's how that works," and Julius doesn't lord over anyone with his magic, but at the same time, Miro doesn't really know what he _does_ with it. He doesn't want to ask in case he ends up cursed. 

"He's just a kid, though." 

"We were all kids once," Spezz says. "It's the best time to be one." 

"Might be too young for this, though," Miro mutters under his breath. But half the guys in the room have been dating someone since they were in high school. Miro realizes, they might have been his age when they started thinking about marrying their sweethearts. 

But, it's been easy so far; magic approves their wedding, so the media has been playing that angle, and Miro keeps off Twitter so he hasn't seen any of it. With magic, things are supposed to fall into place. 

Luka's a _fine_ roommate. He didn't have many opinions about decorating the apartment, except that he needed a place to display his shoes. He probably has more shoes than Segs, but at least Luka wears them on the court and sometimes gives them away to kids or something. 

For that matter, Miro didn't have any real opinions, except he wanted things to be modern and clean, and like, everyone else he knows has a clean place with neutral and relaxing colors, so it works in whites and creams. Their play schedules are on the fridge; there's pasta in the pantry. Their video games are on a mixed shelf. Luka has more pictures and magazine covers of himself just as decoration, but Miro has a few jerseys and medals around. 

They coordinate about the dogs, more than anything else. It's really easy to find Luka on the couch, both dogs on his chest in one furry golden-tan lump. Miro would feel more hurt about Leo being so easily won over, but it looks comfortable.

* * *

Luka settles in okay. There are parts of the city that he can get by fine with his Spanish--not most of the fancier parts, but enough, JJ tells Luka.

"We'll go to a good taqueria," promises JJ. "And then you can see." 

The food's pretty good. Not as good as in Spain, but they have good tacos, and they have a Hard Rock here, too, just a bit past the arena. Alongside all the other fast-food staples, he's not hurting for choice. 

The team's nice. His team is nice, and even if they weren't, even if they all hated him, Luka knows he can't leave. He's a rookie. This is what he's wanted to do his whole life, and now he's here, playing with legends. 

"You know, you don't have to slouch to make JJ feel better," Dirk says, and Luka feels the contrary urge to put his hands deeper into his pockets. Dirk Nowitzki has played twenty-one years in Dallas. Dallas watched him grow from the European player that hardly anyone believed in to an icon. He changed the face of the game for every European player. He also thinks he's really fucking funny. "So stop slouching." 

"Yeah, ok, _abuelo_," Luka says, taking his hands out of his pockets. He straightens up, a little, to respect his elders. Salah and JJ snicker, and Dirk just ducks his head and laughs. He's got that. The rest of the guys howl. 

"Better than Old Man, I guess," Dirk says, and well, Luka isn't getting too much shit for it. Anyway, it's true. He's old, and Luka swears that half the front office has played with him. 

"But you are one," Jalen interjects, and he sprints down the court and back, to be funny. Luka resists the urge to high five his fellow rookie. Ryan technically counts, but no one really treats him like a rookie because he's twenty-eight. And Australian. Luka can barely understand him half the time.

The trainers look at him and tell him he needs to get into better form, but Luka only smiles and says, "I'll get there." 

It's a lot of expectations. They want him to drop a little, be a little faster. He's not as slow as Dirk, but Dirk is as ancient as dirt, and Luka is nineteen. As long as he can see where to pass, and as along as his teammates can catch what he's handing them and shoot, it shouldn't be a problem. 

The first game of the season can't come fast enough. Luka loves basketball. He breathes it. 

"You can't expect magic to do it for you," Dennis says, during a scrimmage. He winks at Luka and follows it up with a chuckle.

"Talent is only so far," Luka agrees, for lack of anything else to say. He hasn't seen if any of his teammates were like him or even just magic, in ways unlike him, but Americans are weird about magic and athletes, and Luka knew that about the NBA going in.

Dallas's a good city for magic of all sorts, in the way that big cities are; it's also a good place for sports-magic, in a way that some cities aren't. He'll get to play, and they won't think he's cursed or cheating more than expected. You have to get away with some little things, to make it in sports, but it's not magic, just footwork.

When the team asks him if there's anything he needs in the locker room, Luka only says, "Put me next to Salah." That's all he wants. That's all he needs, honestly. He can play for the rest. He didn't get to play for his jersey number, but two sevens are maybe better than just one. 

He also doesn't know anyone else here.

Salah puts him under his arm and gives Luka a noogie, and Luka can't even hide a smile. He's not alone here, and he doesn't have to start from scratch to make friends. JJ speaks, and they only make fun of each others' accents a little bit; they amp up the Spanish when Maxi makes Dirk lean down to say something secret and German. 

Dirk's apologetic about it all. Mostly. "This is yours," he says, and Luka doesn't know how he didn't see it before. His shoulders are heavy, and there is a mantle on them. A franchise. A city. "But not right now." 

"Yes." Luka wants to be the guy. He is a franchise player, and he knows it. "But how long are you hanging on?" 

"Did the media tell you to ask that?" laughs Dirk. "I don't know. When I retire, you know. I'm forty. But you need to know a little history, and you need to learn to take it." 

Luka, for once, sits and listens. He doesn't like hearing stories; they're old, and Dirk is another old man reliving his glory days while Luka is making his. Dirk's seen teams move out of Dallas, and Luka can connect the threads. Sports-magic and change are volatile. And something that's been built on someone as solid as Dirk, well--that needs a foundation when it moves. Luka doesn't think he's that right now but he can be, someday. Hopefully soon.

"I'm not doing the same thing you are," Luka insists, flatly. He doesn't know how the hell Dirk managed to anchor himself like that, what combination of events and magic and personal character did that, but he's not Dirk. Dirk's not even magic, not in the way Luka is--Dirk is just good and humble and lucky, in the way that legends and folktales are.

Luka is not the second coming of Dirk Nowitzki. Dirk is a pillar, and the franchise and the city will sag underneath the weight of his loss. Dirk will retire, and the whole weight of what he's been carrying will fall into the open. sports-magic is wild and unpredictable, and those things are dangerous.

"Well, they never asked me to marry Tony Romo, so you're on your own there." Dirk's smile is half-joking, but the words are true.

* * *

Miro is not a magic expert. He does what he's told, and he leaves well enough alone, except no one's told him how exactly this works; why, if they had to get married, they just don't get it over with, and there's no special date on a solstice they're holding out for.

But magic can't lie, and even he knows that. 

Julle might be a magic expert. Miro has hazy recollections about _something_ that he did at Worlds, and now that Miro thinks about it, there's a small group of Finnish hockey players with magic, and he's not sure what they all do. Julius Honka and Eeli Tolvanen and Sebastian Aho had a little cluster of impenetrable magic talk at Worlds, and then they went to get drunk with everyone, so it wasn't like they were mysterious about it. 

It's not a big deal to ask him, since he's also Miro's sometimes hotel roommate, about a little magic. The team knows, and maybe Julle can help him fill in the gaps. Miro wants to know what he's gotten into, and this isn't even a problem of his own design; he's just the solution. No one's ever taught him much about magic, more than what he knows intuitively, so this could be a terribly dark magic, or a harmless thing, or a medium danger thing, the kind of danger they allow themselves to get into when they step onto ice with sharper than usual skates. 

"Or, if it's like sex magic or something," adds Miro, intelligibly, when he remembers a joke Carrick made, and one that Miro was glad that he was alone when he could decipher it. 

"Don't be ridiculous," Julius scoffs. "If it was going to be sex magic, they would have told you and gotten it over with." 

That's not reassuring. Miro thinks he wanted a _sex magic doesn't exist_ instead of this. "So, wait, that's real?" 

Once the thought's there, Miro can't quite shake it. They don't have to do any ritual sex magic, but the thought's hard to get rid of. 

Luka's _big_. Miro's never thought of himself as small before, but next to Luka, he is; if Luka had to, he could pin Miro down and hold him there, keep him there until he came on the logo or something, whatever it was. 

The room is silent. Miro desperately hopes Julius says something. 

"Sex can be magic." Julius kicks off his shoes. "But I don't know what it'd solve, here." 

"What does it--actually, I don't want to know." 

"Go ahead and fuck him with my blessing, though." Julius gives him a look. "If you needed my permission, I'll sign something. It can't hurt." 

Miro throws one perfectly fluffy white pillow at Julius before flipping him off. Luka is tall and big and magic; it's not only that. He's kind of cute when he's just in the living room, a dog at his heels, just reorganizing his shoes, and that's a problem Miro didn't forsee, either.

"That's one way to clear the depth chart." Julius clutches his chest, and he fakes being mortally wounded. "I'm dead." 

"You might skate better as a zombie." 

It's the last conversation they have for a while. Miro puts his earbuds in, and Julius scrolls through his phone.

* * *

Before every season starts, Luka likes to look around and see everyone's rituals. Salah has his prayers and the way he folds his socks again and again, and that's familiar. DeAndre whistles when he ties his shoes, and Luka already knows that they'll all be hearing a lot of that very precise tune. There are other guys who put on their shoes a certain way, and there's offerings, of course, verbal and not, and Luka tunes out the promises of giving their all, of making everyone watching proud--he knows those.

For his part, Luka's already dedicated his shoes. He promises to play. He promises to win. He promises to have fun. None of those promises are hard to keep, for him, and basketball has always been fun. He doesn't burn an offering.

Then he steps on the court, and any thoughts are gone.

Luka plays over thirty minutes in his first game. He's a starter, and Luka takes it for granted that he'll be the starter, and the speed of the game here is different. He didn't really believe it, but now that he's out there, and he might owe Salah an apology. Luka has ten points and a few rebounds; it's not his night: he misses all his 3s, and the Suns take a lead in the second and fly away with it. The Mavs don't catch up. 

Losing the first game puts a sour taste in his mouth, but it's only one game, and it's the Suns' home opener, so he can be alright and wave to Deandre Ayton. They're sort of friends; he's the one that makes sure Luka's in the Fortnite chat. 

He waves, half-heartedly.

"Can't win them all," Salah says, heading off Luka being huffy about it, while they're packing up the room. He's sort of offended. 

"Well, first game. I'm still rusty, I think." Luka pauses, for effect. "So are you."

"Well, they're saving me for clutch games." Salah reaches over to punch Luka in the arm. "We'll get to play again soon, kid." 

At home, Dirk brings his meals on a foil-covered plate. That is not a thing Luka expected, but no one else cares. Luka decides he shouldn't, either. 

They win at home. Luka puts up twenty six points, when actually makes his 3s. It puts a smile on his face. 

Then they lose against the Hawks. And the Raptors. And the Jazz. 

And the Spurs. 

Luka gets angry at the losses. It's not fair. He plays his heart out, and this is the fourth game lost in a row, and he feels like a loser. They lost in overtime, too, and he's tired from the travel, and he just wants to hit something. They're on the road and have tomorrow off, but he doesn't know how he's going to face the reporters. It makes him want to break something.

He doesn't punch a wall, but it might be close. 

Salah finds him, and he says, "Luka," since it's clear that he's not alright, and that the rest of the team leaves Salah to deal with him. 

It's not _fair_ Luka wants to say, _ don't we want to win_, and he knows better than to say those things in the arena. No matter how good he is, how many points Luka puts up, they can't seem to get a win. 

"Don't take it so hard, kid," Salah says, and how--how could Luka not. 

It all comes out, and Luka might be sniffling about it. He's sad but mostly, he's angry. He says nonsense, maybe, but he definitely remembers saying, "We're _losing_." It's terrible. There's only so much he can do to take out his frustrations out on senseless workouts and video games, and underneath it all, it's not getting better. Even the dogs aren't helpful, whuffing at his feet for scratches behind the ear.

"It's the best league in the world," Salah continues, a hand on Luka's shoulder. "A game's not life or death. We got eighty-two of them, and sometimes we're going to lose a few in a row. This isn't Madrid."

He's right. They're not in Madrid anymore.

* * *

Everyone keeps saying he'll know when they're ready, like Luka being magic means he can divine whatever signs there were about this sports-marriage for himself. He can't. There's a niggling thought behind it all, that he has to distill down to the smaller bits. Marriage is a ritual; what are its parts? 

Dirk retiring will leave a lot of pieces to pick up. What are those parts?

Luka asks Maxi one thing on the subject: "Do you care?" 

"About what?" he leans back in his chair. "The fans asking if I'm you? I should get that on a shirt or something." 

"The other thing," clarifies Luka, though honestly, he doesn't get that either. They don't look anything alike, and besides, Luka's way prettier. "You know, the other thing." 

"I mean, it's extra security." Maxi knows, of course. "Sympathetic magic and all. Some of it's going to bounce to me." 

"It's not Dirk's fault, just uh--"

"I dunk, rook," Maxi says. "It's a nice bonus. You don't really want to hear about my contract, and I don't want to know about yours. You think they'd trade you if you left your boy at the altar?" 

Luka doesn't know how to say anything to that. Luka doesn't want to get traded; Dallas is good to him, so far, and it's easy to know this is his team, will be his team. The coaches want him to get the ball, and he wants to play the plays and be the guy, and it's good. It's good until Dennis looks miffy that he's not getting the ball as much, but that's just the game, and they don't have to be on the court at the same time. 

Maxi sighs, and he laughs: "Look, that's a problem for when there's someone they can't find from Würzburg to eat up minutes. It'll be better then, if only because there's less to go wrong." 

It's true, as far as Luka knows. His secondary education is spotty, but that sounds like solid magic theory.

* * *

Esa jokes that the beat writers put out a story about Miro every day, and it's not like Miro reads most of it, but all they ever ask Miro is about being nineteen, being good at hockey, and his whole thing with Luka Dončić.

It's all people want to talk about, so he fakes his way through most of it, just like when someone asks him about how practice went. Also, he doesn't know how he got stuck with the mayor making small talk at him, but he's holding a small plate with some tiny pieces of cheese on it and standing in a suit, and Miro dreads that he has more of these occasions in the future.

"Vander Esch looks good. Great. Almost as good as Luka's season. Or yours," the _Mayor of Dallas_, Mike Rawlins, tells him. At Miro's blank stare, he elaborates. "Football. He's a rookie. He's been great. Better than anyone could have expected." 

Miro bites his tongue back. Why do people keep expecting he's going to know every athlete in Dallas? 

Rawlins misinterprets the silence. "Don't worry, you and Luka will probably beat Vander Esch and whoever the Rangers pick for their side. Hell, maybe you'll be done by the time they announce the other half. Baseball likes to take its time, and they have the new stadium coming up." 

There's not a timeline for the wedding, but they're nineteen, and it's better for the city if it happens sooner than later. But soon. Their real deadline is before magical backlash happens, of some sort. Miro doesn't understand the politics behind it, either, but there's also something about the Cowboys and Rangers because apparently, once something is done in Dallas, it's _done_ in Dallas. 

All Miro knows is that it's a city rivalry. 

"We wouldn't do that to you. We're friends with Arlington. They're good people." He pauses. Rawlins looks like he's about to spit on the ground. He kind of does and sounds bitter when he says, "They still call themselves Dallas, but they play out there. Remember, your heart's in Dallas, and we'll stick by you." 

That's the kind of thing they keep saying, and it feels traitorous and like balancing on a tightrope to think very loudly that he's a boy from Espoo, Finland. They already think he's that deeply tied to Dallas, as if he's Jamie, who's going to retire here, or if he's someone else instead of just a rookie who wants to play a game. 

It's almost overwhelming, sometimes, to realize he's in Dallas, in America, playing _hockey_. Miro still does his little rituals, the little chant under his breath as he tapes his stick and he laces his skates up the same way, no matter what, but it's different. It's different knowing that the locker room is full of hockey superstars, and that he gets to face the best every night. It's overwhelming sometimes. 

Esa nudges him, and Miro is thankful for the Finn corner. The media's taken to calling them the Finnish mafia. "Never been to New York?" 

"No," and Miro isn't embarrassed about that, and he's sure he sounds stupid. It's New York but it's also _New York_.

"We don't have an extra day, but we could do something," Julius suggests, from the other side of Miro's stall. "Show the rookies Broadway." 

"Don't know any good bars, then?" Roope complains. "Broadway. Might as well suggest opera!"

On the road, plenty of guys head back early to talk to their family or wives or girlfriends, and it's not like it's out of the ordinary for them to get chirped about it. That makes it easier for his team to tease him. It's nothing when Comeau says, "Ah, don't let us keep you from date night," when Miro heads back before Julius and Roope are done doing whatever they're doing. Esa washed his hands of all their actions an hour ago.

It's not date night, Miro wants to protest, except Roope is his roommate right now and will honestly tell the team he's going to be playing Fortnite with Luka. Miro doesn't play 'chel _that_ much. At home, it's only when he's up enough to play with his friends back home. It's easy enough to do, and Miro doesn't have to think about playing 'chel. Fortnite's easy to bring places. Jamie and Segs banned it, but honestly, no one takes them seriously. No one's bringing game consoles or anything, and that's about all. 

"Do I need to be out of the room?" Roope teases. "I'll crash with Honks." 

Roope doesn't actually need to crash with Julius. They're just playing Fortnite.

* * *

(They play Fortnite. But Miro appreciates being alone, listening to Luka complaining about kills. )

* * *

Luka is good, and there's no point denying it. They've called him special since he was practically born. Magic is a part of him, and it's not the biggest part of him. It doesn't lie, is the thing. Magic can do a lot of things, but it never is what it isn't. It's about connections and bonds and truth.

Luka has always wanted to play basketball. He's had a ball in his hand since he was able to walk unsteadily, and he was always around his dad's teams when he was really a little kid. He doesn't know what he'd do without it.

He's still a rookie, as everyone keeps reminding him, but this is his team already. 

They say he's too prideful, too cocky. So when Luka goes a little quiet and red at having to wear the backpack, it's only expected. It's part of his rookie duties, yeah, meant to humble him. But. He doesn't want to. It seems like crap on top of crap after these losses, and they finally eke out a win, but Luka's plenty humbled. 

"Ah, it's ok, Luka," JJ says, seeing Luka's aura of despair. He hopes not literally, but sometimes he swore other people could feel lit."You can leave it and just play. Don't set something on fire because you're unhappy." 

"I've never done that. You watch too many cartoons." But Luka leaves the Hello Kitty backpack in the car, just in case. There's nothing really in it: some protein bars and gum. It's wearing it that's the point. 

"JJ said it was alright," Luka insists, approximately three minutes later, when he's seen walking into the practice facility without it.

Dwight yells to JJ, and a moment later, after JJ answers, Dwight just shakes his head. "I guess, man. JJ has seniority."

Jalen frowns, the face of a man who definitely knows someone's playing favorites. "Does that mean I can drop mine off?" 

"Do you got permission from JJ?" Jalen's face is a no. "Rules are rules, rook." 

Wes catches them and says, "Man, JJ's _soft_ on you, LD." 

"Just at home," JJ calls. He is, and it's not just because Luka does little spark-light tricks for his kids. "Can't break the rules all the way." 

Luka kind of thinks he can, but there's a time and a place for that. Dennis gets a little bit miffy, but in a joking way, "What, my gift isn't good enough for you? Aight, I know who my favorite rook is." 

He tries to put Luka in a headlock after, and Luka mock-resists. His team is good to him.

* * *

When Miro's phone goes off, buzzing through Miro's nap, he doesn't really want to check it; Miro's sister is a menace. She sends him articles that he knows she can't read (and neither can Miro) solely because they have a picture of Luka in them. Some of them are from his early days, pictures of a sixteen year old making his first debut against men, and Miro wonders if he looked like that. 

"Yes," Roope says, the one time Miro's phone goes off and he has to hastily explain. "Like a baby reindeer that Santa lost." 

"Still kicked your butt," Miro protests. 

"Yeah, of course you did." Roope ruffles Miro's hair fairly often, but sometimes it makes him feel like such a kid. Miro grumbles about it.

"You are a kid," Esa says. Then, Esa laughs at him, and he says, "Don't stay up past your bed time." 

Sometimes, his friends are the worst. 

The Stars give Miro tools to ask for help, but Miro doesn't need any. The Jims approve of him. As for the rest, the Finns are great, most of the time. Miro's already heard Klinger complain to Janny that the defense is a pack of Finns. 

"Lions, not wolves," Esa educates, not fazed. Finns are lions. "We don't run in packs."

"What are we, a zoo?" Janny grins, and he punches Klinger in the arm. They say something in Swedish, and Miro retained exactly zero words of Swedish in school, but he can tell when it's just team ribbing. 

"I don't know," Klinger says. "Rads looks like he might bite." 

"Don't let him hear you," Dobby says, passing them on the way to the showers. "He might have to prove that." 

Rads looks up and grins to show off his missing teeth.

* * *

"Who's in these pictures?" Jalen asks, and that's how Luka sees that someone's put out the footage of him and Miro at home on Reddit. It's worse than the jokes that went around when Ryan was the worst interviewer in the world. It's weird to see; Luka doesn't think he's seen Miro in person for a week, and occasionally, Miro will text him pictures of how the dogs are doing. They're not this kind of oddly domestic picture, most of the time. He has a weird feeling about it. 

He doesn't hate it. Kind of the opposite, really. 

Luka can sense the impeding teasing that's happening. It's kind of inevitable, and he grimaces. "JB, he's my roommate." 

"Roommate?" Jalen asks. He's the type of guy to actually not care about news he wasn't told, and Luka's only a little glad of it. "Wait, first rounder like you can't afford rent?" 

Dirk shakes his head. "A roommate's good," and he laughs like there's a story behind this, and Luka may ask later, but there's also half a chance he's just laughing at Luka. Luka can feel himself going a little red when Dirk continues, coming over to give Luka a noogie, "But should you call him that?" 

"He is." It's true. They're roommates, and they have very busy schedules. Dirk isn't one to super give him a lot of advice, just stuff like following his lead to sign stuff for fans and how long he's supposed to stay, and Luka gets it. This is going to be Luka's team, after Dirk makes his rounds. Still, Luka isn't going to be wearing suits every game day. 

"Bring him to dinner sometime," suggests Dirk. "And stop calling him your roommate; you're getting married." 

It's easier to call Miro his roommate. Luka still hasn't figured out the secret to marriage, but he has to admit, Miro's easy to live with. There was an adjustment period when he was a kid, with roommates in Madrid, and he ended up with Hernangómez for the longest, but it's never a surprise to find Miro at home, with or without other people, and sometimes he's doing something like playing fetch with the dogs with an old hockey glove or unrolling a floor carpet or just taking a nap, his hair over his eyes. 

They can live together. 

Luka thinks about moving somewhere else, and he curls his lip at the thought. It's too weird. 

"You have plans?" Luka asks when he gets home and Miro is there, throwing some laundry around. Their schedules didn't overlap much in the beginning of the season. It still doesn't. It's a rare week that they both have homestands. 

"Does it matter?" Miro yawns. It's an off day for him. He should be able to be lazy for a little bit. He's still probably going to the gym later, to keep up his schedule. "You need me out of here?" 

Miro's almost gotten used to very tall men being in his apartment. Luka prides himself on being exactly two meters tall. 

"Just, uh, Dirk invited me to dinner." 

"Okay?" 

"He wants me to bring you. Since you're here." Luka looks sheepish. That's something else Miro has to get used to. He has a default plus one now, which would be weirder if they were ever in the same place at the same time. Miro's had to do a lot of 'he's on a road trip' explaining for team events. He's really hoping the Mavs aren't around during family skate. "Yes?" 

"Not every time," Miro says, and he doesn't even sigh. Dirk, he's learned, is a big deal; it's not just a teammate, but kind of like Teemu Selänne asked you to dinner. No one just turns that down. "Okay. Tonight?" 

Miro might've hit up Roope to hang out, otherwise. It's not like he had big plans. 

"His wife's a good cook. He brings his lunch like, every day," Luka adds. That is a draw. They are not the best at cooking, and hey, it's a meal that they aren't ordering delivered. They can make pasta and chicken, those staples of their diets, and a few other simple things. It's enough to survive and then go out to eat when they get bored of it. 

"Do I dress up?" Miro asks later, looking at his closet. He doesn't know. He wouldn't dress up for a dinner with Esa or even one with the Spezzas. He's never taken Luka to a dinner with Jamie, either, so he's going in blind. 

Luka shrugs, his blue Mavericks shirt pulling tight across his shoulders. "Pants, a shirt." 

Luka felt weird ringing the doorbell. He didn't go to a lot of people's places for the first time. There's lots of trees around, and Luka's shiny blue Porsche looks very conspicuous out in the driveway. 

Dirk opens his own door. 

"I don't bite," Dirk says, and he grins. He holds out a hand. "Nice to see you." 

"Luka didn't say you were a vampire." Miro takes a moment to figure out if he has to take off his shoes, and he follows the cues. "So I'm not that worried." 

"Miro, Dirk," Luka mumbles, making half-hearted introductions. 

Dinner with Dirk is absolutely terrifying, to be honest. It's not like on the road, where they're all goofing off, but Dirk is mostly the same. Luka still doesn't know why or how everything magic clings to him, and this is no closer to finding out a thing. It's dinner with a teammate, but it's also weirdly like--

Luka doesn't have a real comparison. Everyone wants him to inherit a legacy from this man, to be just as good, and Dirk's the same on the court and off: humble and goofy.

It's a nice dinner.

His wife ("Call me Jess") is friendly, and she cooks. She confides, "Well, some things. We go out to try new things." 

There is an astounding amount of food on the table. Pasta and fish and a large salad and something that's probably some form of beans and potatos. Dirk jokes, "Well, I don't eat as much as I used to." 

At least Dirk's wife laughs at his jokes, which is probably for the best. Luka says, "So this is why Dirk brings his own plate?" The man brings his own lunch, and he doesn't want anyone touching his game day pasta.

"And doesn't forget to bring it home," Dirk adds, and this is the closest Luka's ever seen Dirk to bashful, and it's weird, and he doesn't like it. Dirk can be humble and goofy; he can be the dude that wants to be a mentor but ends up being like a weird uncle. He can't be bashful. 

Miro doesn't seem fazed by this at all and navigates simple questions with simple answers. Luka wonders if that is a hockey skill. Also, apparently Dirk's wife is Swedish, which Luka didn't know, but there's some kind of joke between Miro and her that Luka keeps missing. 

It's too homey to get used to. Miro fits in, and Luka can see the rest of the guys appreciating his jokes, and there's a crackle up Luka's spine, and he takes a breath before he realizes it's gone.

* * *

Luka is only a little jealous that Miro seems to have a posse. JJ and Salah are good guys, but they're older than Luka, and not really going to want to wrestle for the remote and eat a truly ridiculous amount of pizza in his apartment. They play games together, sometimes, but JJ then cracks a joke about making Luka babysit the little Bareas for him, and Luka has to awkwardly laugh. 

Salah's better, but he definitely gets tired of Luka following him around. 

"You can go places by yourself," he says. "You're a big boy. Or take your mom, heh?" 

Luka spends some time in his apartment after that. 

The first time he meets Miro's crew is by coming back from walking the dogs from his mom's place and then circling a few blocks before walking into their apartment building. 

They're playing Mario Kart. Miro's in Luka's gaming chair. There are three people he doesn't recognize sprawled across the main room. Someone lounges on their carpet, and the moment Luka lets Leo off leash, he clambers over and knocks the controller out of his hands and into his long hair. 

There's lots of words in Finnish happening as the game suddenly gets more exciting. 

Luka gets quick introductions: Esa, Julius, Roope. Esa's the one in the other gaming chair; Roope is the one detangling a dog from his hair. Well, two dogs, and Luka has to laugh when Hugo also goes over to join in harrassing him.

Julius is the short one. He's also the one that looks up the exact second Luka walks into his own home. Luka notices because it makes the hair on his arm stand up. He seriously looks like he might curse or murder someone. 

"You want in?" Julius asks. "Roope's going to be useless for a while." 

"Fuck you," Roope answers, but his controller is already halfway across the room. 

"Sure," Luka says, and more introductions can wait until later.

* * *

Miro doesn't have a good time trying to get an answer from the Stars magic people about what he's supposed to do before they slap a marriage date on him. He has to be ready for the ritual part of it, but what _is_ that.

"What is a marriage?" they ask, not answering Miro's questions. All four of the Stars magic people wear robes covering their faces. It's awkward not seeing who he's talking to. "It's a partnership, for one."

"We don't hate each other," Miro adds. Miro keeps a blank face. He hasn't thought that far. Luka and Miro live together and have dogs. Miro doesn't know if he's out for more responsibility, but it works. 

"That's the bare minimum," the one in the black robe says. "Support each other."

Then, the short one takes pulls down her hood and says, "Also, while you're going back, tell John Klingberg to stop taking off his talisman. We can tell."

* * *

Luka's mom goes to every game, and it's really easy to say, "I should go to one," and then end up at the Mavs game, with her. At least, it's really easy to end up doing that if you're Miro. He puts on a hat and buys a soda, and then there's a game to watch. This is a step, probably, to ending this weird standstill they are about this. 

Miro still doesn't know when they're getting married. Sooner is better than later, so he should push through and like, go to a game. He shouldn't make a big deal of it. He'll get a roster, and he can quickly check social media to get a hang of faces to some names, just in case someone catches him to try to make Miro answer a question. 

He checks Luka's Instagram, and he can't help but notice the latest post. Luka's holding the dogs, and the dogs have tiny jerseys. Mavs and Stars; and no doubt they're wearing Luka and Miro's numbers. Miro swipes, and sure enough, there's their names. The caption is: Our biggest fans 😍 🐕 🐕 🏒 🏀. 

It's cute. It is devastatingly cute. Miro taps to like it, and he types out a comment: _cute 🐕🐕🐕_

The atmosphere in the AAC completely changes at a basketball game. There's less loud music, less light show, and there's more watching the light hit the shiny watches down in the courtside seats. Luka is one of the starters they announce, and there's a complicated opening ceremony before they start, but Miro's used to skating out underneath a glowing green star, so he has no room to talk. 

Luka has the ball, and he defends it, and then he passes it way across the court; it's vision that Miro hadn't noticed and hadn't anticipated, and then Luka takes the pass back and goes up and shoots, and faster than Miro can blink, the Mavs have scored. It goes down the other way, since the other team has possession now, and Miro can follow the game. 

Everyone's watching when Luka has the ball.

Luka has soft hands. He finds and sets up his teammates for a shot, and that misses, but he's there to catch the wide rebound and go for another shot, and his follow through takes him out to the courtline. He's not the fastest on the court, but he's always in a decent spot to catch the ball, and Miro can appreciate that on a technical level. 

Miro wants to understand how the line changes work here, but it seems more like soccer substitutions, but not really. They announce the changes, though. Luka doesn't leave the court until maybe five minutes before the period ends. 

The Mavs lose.

Miro thinks Luka's play didn't deserve that, but sports aren't usually fair about that kind of thing.

The Stars talk about it in the middle of the locker room, and Miro should have known that a picture would end up in the newspaper. For all the bullshit that they say not to read the press, some of them totally do because they go to _chirp Miro about it._

"Who was that sitting next to you?" asks Pitty, innocently. "At the Mavs game." 

"Yeah, she seemed to be chatting you up a lot," Rads adds in. "That's more of a Seggy thing than a you thing, I think." 

The realization strikes, and Miro is horrified, absolutely horrified, and half the room laughs at him. He must be as pale as Esa with how shitty he feels. 

"That--that's Luka's mom," Miro stutters out. "She go, all the games." She's always at home games, and she usually wears a Luka jersey. Sometimes Miro thinks she has more of them than Luka does. 

Silence. 

"She's hot," Segs says, not knowing when to shut up. Spezz shoots him an incredibly unamused look. "Just saying. She is."

Rads wasn't wrong, is the thing. 

"Seggy, if you fucking ask for her number," Dicky sniggers. 

Miro wants to die. He wants the locker room floor to open up so he doesn't have to hear another joke about Segs liking cougars, except this time he's talking about _Luka's mom_ who is going to be Miro's _ mother-in-law_, and --generally, Miro knows, you just tell guys to knock it off if they're talking about your sister or cousin and let life move on or take it outside the rink. That's not fineable, but this... Totally could be. 

"I'm fining Seggy," Miro tells Spezz, over the truly horrifying comments. "No mother-in-laws." 

Spezz giggles and snorts, seconding, "Yeah, that's a fine." 

"Grandmothers for double," Dobby adds. "Little old ladies love him."

* * *

The Mavs keep losing. They string together a couple of wins, and then they lose four. Rinse. Repeat. They keep doing it, no matter how many double doubles Luka puts up, no matter how many points he gets on any given night. Some are close losses; some are absolute trash. 

People change things up, just in case it would help, if sports-magic wants more of them to give them the good games, and then, they can win them. Respecting magic has never won a game, but it sure has lost it. 

Salah stops praying. Ryan takes to leaving bread with sprinkles around for the ants or something, as an offering. Jalen gets a yo-yo, and Luka's not actually sure if that's a concentration thing or a joke or an actual offering. 

(There's also the whole Dirk show, and he says he wants to keep playing, but Luka can feel it every time they step into the AAC; magic, a little wilder, a little less contained. Every last game on the road feels more finite.)

"It sucks," Luka says, staring at the prepared meals in his fridge. He'd gotten a private chef, since the Mavs were so intent on getting him to slim down. Even still, there was something to eat. He closed the door. 

"Yeah, it does. Always sucks," Miro says, since Luka couldn't even let it all out in the comfort of his own apartment anymore. "But are you really pitying yourself?" 

Luka gets angry. The hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and it's just--Miro doesn't know--"You don't get it." 

"Best defender award," Miro spits back. "In our Liiga, Esa has one, too. Our defense still lets in goals." 

"I'm winning rookie of the year," and it's in the kind of surety that he wouldn't dare say to the cameras, but Luka is. It shouldn't sound so defeated, but it's an award. He wants a better one. Luka knows what it's like to win, and there's few things sweeter. 

"I'm not." Miro doesn't even sound disappointed, but Luka thinks he is, a little bit. Everyone wants to know they're good. Luka would vote for Miro, if he had one. "But we might make playoffs." 

"We're not," Luka admits. He thinks he might cry, and it's a stupid thing to feel over, but he hates _not winning_. 

"You're an only child," Miro says, suddenly, like that matters. "No one ever taught you how to lose." 

Luka puts on the smile, that one that always has his mom going 'oh, my handsome boy,' and forgive him of all things. He doesn't know if he wants to cry or laugh. It's maybe true. It probably is true. "Yes. It's not so bad." 

"I have a sister," Miro offers and Luka wonders what Miro's sister is like. "Older than me," Miro adds. "She's doing things with her degree."

"What's her name?" Luka asks, and it hits him, then, that he doesn't know much about Miro, just that he's good at hockey and really good with their dogs and absolutely hates media interviews, even when they're not about their upcoming sports-marriage.

"Miira." 

"Real creative, your parents." Luka can't help the shit he says sometimes, but it makes Miro snort, and they share a look. A part of Luka thinks maybe about asking Miro if he ever wanted to get a degree, if he liked school. Luka would be fine without any of it, to be honest. He started on this path young, and all he wants to do is play. He's lucky, this way, and he doesn't have to think too hard. He's not a doctor or a scientist or an accountant, and all those things seem very ordinary, compared to what he's doing now. 

There are people who would say magic has given him everything he's ever needed, and Luka doesn't know if that's right or wrong. 

"You know my mom," Luka says into the silence, and then he continues, "And my grandma is the best woman in the world. They're my family."

"Your dad?" Miro asks, after a pause. 

"We don't--" Luka shakes his head. And Luka doesn't know if Miro's googled him or what, but he doesn't know the story. It's a private thing; the only and best thing his dad has ever done for him was basketball, and that was mostly Luka's decision to go. "We don't talk about him, much. He ever wants to talk to me, he knows how." 

"My dad fixes doors and elevators," Miro continues, looking away. "And he's always told me to stop playing if it stopped being fun, if the rituals we do get to be too much work." 

Luka doesn't ask what this one is, if it's too much work or not. He wants to, but he doesn't want to know the answer. "What's that like?" he asks, instead. "Like, Finland, how's that?" 

Miro looks up and talks about his sister, and growing up on the ice, and his mom taking him to practice, and Luka listens.

It helps.

* * *

Esa is the first person Miro goes to with questions, and usually he's cool about it. He gets it, and Esa likes being a mentor. (Usually it's questions about stuff he can get; he'll do English questions if pressed, but he'll hand Miro over to someone else to answer those. )

Miro leans into it a little when Esa's over to complain about Klinger and watch a bad movie with Miro, and Miro wonders why he let Esa pick the movie. Polly might be his full-time partner now, but Esa's like the big brother that Miro never asked for. A good one. Except his taste in movies is awful, and it's some kind of incomprehensible action movie that should be enjoyable. 

He stuffs some popcorn into his mouth as someone gets stabbed, and Miro yawns. He looks around his own apartment while he makes a half-sound. 

"Is something wrong?" 

"Just thinking."

"Dangerous," Esa says, stealing some popcorn for himself. "You say you always do the best when you don't think on the ice."

Hockey's easy. This isn't. Miro's look gets Esa on the defensive. 

"Okay, okay, what is it?" Esa frowns. "Injury? Fuck, someone might have cursed the defense, if that. No. You having trouble getting a credit card? You and your boy having problems?" 

"Not... Really." Miro has to say they aren't really, just, "The situation is still weird. I can't get any of it, what's supposed to happen, with like this. And Luka."

"I am?" Esa laughs. "You're getting married, for magic reasons. And the reason you ask me and not Honks is...?" 

"I could," Miro admits. "But I don't know, Honks is--" _Perpetually single_, he doesn't have to say. "Probably not the best person to ask." 

"You're not asking him for relationship advice, no," Esa agrees. "But it's magic advice. He might even get out the wand and robes and shit for you." 

Miro isn't sure they're different things. That's part of the question. Telling Esa that, though, would probably get him laughed at again.

* * *

Luka doesn't enjoy when his phone goes off, and it's a text from Jalen, saying something like: _i have an idea for ya boy and you, real romantic_. 

_put those ideas fr you get a date,_ Luka texts back, half the time. He doesn't know if he's even supposed to do stuff like that, if the magic would laugh back at him for _taking Miro on a date_.

Magic doesn't talk, per se, but there's a feeling. Luka feels it, in the way his breathing is charged and expectant. 

It shouldn't laugh at him, and Luka realizes this with a jolt, just as sudden as his texts going off again. One of those texts is about ley lines, from Julius; Julius Honka is a 'like their story on IG' and a 'reply to a Snap occasionally' kind of friend, which Luka has plenty of, until he ends up being the only person who fits the intersection of Dallas + pro sport + magic and Luka needs someone to bounce things off of. 

He reads it through before letting the dogs out and going back to Fortnite.

* * *

Julius is not any kinder when Miro goes to ask him about his marriage. Engagement. Whatever it is. Ordinarily, Miro would never volunteer to watch Julius sort his closet; that's more of a Roope thing, but he didn't want to ask about magic around more teammates than necessary. "Do I look like an expert?" 

"I don't know what you do, so, maybe." Miro balls up and throws a sock back at Julius and his pile. "Esa said something about robes?"

"Sorry, left them back home." Julius rolls his eyes. "But. You know why it has to be you, right?" 

"Mostly," Miro admits. "The pick thing?"

MIro barely knows enough about Dirk to know why there's something special there. Something symbolic. 

"Part of it." Julius opens a drawer and eighty team-issued shirts come out of it. "Three times three is nine. That's math. Even I can count that far."

"Glad to know that you moving to fucking Canada means you didn't skip school," Miro says, as if he has any room to talk. "But it can't just be that." 

"No," Julius agrees. "There's the arena thing. Both teams tying to the place. He's been a constant in that building for almost twenty years." Everyone wants Miro to be; everyone wants Luka to be that. He's been playing basketball in the NBA for about as long as Miro and Luka have been _alive_. 

"And getting married has to do with what?" 

"There's--" Julius takes a deep breath. He makes a complicated expression. "There's something. It's making and reinforcing connections, you know; that's what a lot of magic is." 

Miro frowns. "That's vague. Is there magic that actually makes sense?" 

"Not my field." He waves vaguely to a mirror. "You just have to be ready for it."

* * *

Luka goes to a hockey game, and he doesn't have high hopes. He grabs some popcorn and sits down in his seat, though. There's a light show to start everything off, and the music is great. He doesn't tend to notice the music at Mavs games so much, unless they're giving him a new song, but it's fine. 

They skate on for warmup, and Luka can see a bunch of fans clustered around the ice. 

He can pick up how to watch a game pretty quickly, and it goes so fast; there's guys skating everywhere, and at first, he tries to follow the puck, and then his eye goes to someone who's just flying out there, skating past his teammates, and that hair means that's probably Roope. The puck moves, and at one point, Miro has it. 

He watches. Miro skates, and he doesn't look like he gets tired. He passes, and the guy on the other end can't find it, but there's no one guarding him, so he's alright, just reins it in and keeps going towards the goal. There's a scramble around the net, and the puck keeps bouncing around, and someone in green gets his stick on it.

Miro is cool, like ice, Luka hears Miro's squad joke once. Luka shakes his head when they say Miro doesn't show anything on the ice. He does--in the way he skates, in the way he steals pucks from the opponent, in the way he never complains. Miro lives for the game, and the sports-magic flows through him, and he acts like he doesn't even feel it because he's making his own fun, reveling in it. 

The puck goes in, and the arena goes _crazy_; there's green lights, and the goal song is loud, and the chanting fans are louder, as everything just stops, and a bunch of guys in green huddle around the goal scorer, and he makes a lap. 

Luka might get the appeal of hockey now. 

"What, your boy's on the jumbotron," Jamie yells at Miro on the bench. "Did you know he was coming?" 

"No," Miro says, and they all get tickets to home games, of course, but Luka has never asked. Other athletes go to different games all the time, of course, but Miro kind of expected Luka to tell him. It's near the end of the period, and Coach wants to put him back out there, so he doesn't think about it and skates instead. 

When they're back in the room, during intermission, Miro surreptitiously grabs his phone and texts, _You want to come down after?_ Miro really wants to ask how he'd got here without Miro knowing, but everyone probably assumed Miro was in with it. He immediately regrets the message, but he can't delete it.

There's more guys on a hockey team than on a basketball team. Luka knows like four names, which might have been impressive on someone else who didn't follow hockey but. They're all confined to a corner. One of the nameplates is Miro's.

"Okay, now we get to meet your boy," someone from the right wall says, clearing his throat. He has curly hair; the nameplate above his head says Ritchie, but knowing locker rooms, he could be any of the other fifteen people Luka doesn't know. 

"You didn't sit in the family box, thunderboy?" Julius asks. Luka could have, but that would have meant sitting with everyone's wives and girlfriends, probably, and Luka is not ready for that. 

It rankles a little, but it's not enough to get more than a shrug out of Luka. "What's up?"

Miro looks between Luka and Julius with a little confusion. There's definitely a bunch of conversation that Luka can't catch going on. 

To Luka's left, someone goes "Hey, we've got a guest!" and it all quiets down. He has a C on his chest, and he goes, "Hey, I'm Jamie. How'd you like the game?" 

Luka shakes his hand. Jamie's grip is solid. Luka takes a look around, wonders if he should say anything. "It was pretty good." 

"You didn't get everyone to roll the red carpet for you," Jamie says.

"I wanted it to be a surprise," Luka goes, because he feels all the eyes on him.

The Stars are built and they're muscled guys--built to take hits, Luka realizes--while everyone on the Mavs works on their footwork. The Mavs want Luka to get _lean_, to work on his speed, and these guys don't need that. In fact, they ask, "Hey, can he put on a pair of skates, Miro?" 

Luka smiles, but he doesn't know why they didn't just ask him. Miro bites his lip and says, "He's never tried." 

"You haven't taken him skating?" someone asks, incredulously. His nameplate kind of looks French.

"Just because you're an absolute cliche, Seggy," someone from other side of the room says and throws a small roll of tape at him.

It's true, but Luka says, "I don't know how well I'd do."

Then they go around and make actual introductions, and the dude who moved to sit in the same stall as a goalie is apparently a basketball fan, and Luka feels a little more his element. Only a little; but there was only so much time before the media hounds were let loose in the room, so it was liveable.

"I'll, uh, see you at home," Miro says.

It dawns on Luka that it is home, more home than his years in Spain, already. His hands feel itchy, like the brush of static might spark something.

* * *

Roope is the one who notices, of course. At least he waits until after they grab late night dinner to say anything. "So that's not how you wanted your boy to meet the team, huh?" 

Miro frowns. He could protest to any number of things with that sentence.

"We could have helped you impress him more, I guess." 

"I don't need to impress him." 

"Your type is blond with tattoos," Roope reminds Miro. To accentuate his point, he takes off his latest backwards cap he has on. Miro regrets everything about that crush, but it died when the season ended and he wasn't around Roope every day, that first year, and he can laugh about it now. Roope's a good enough friend not to bring it up that often because Miro was sixteen and shit at hiding a crush. "Of course you wanted to impress him."

He can tell that Roope would say he's still shit at hiding a crush.

"It isn't," Miro denies. "He's not really blond, anyway."

Luka's tattoos, though, are much better than Roope's. If he's being objective. 

"Look, I can't help you if _that's_ what you're talking yourself out of. He likes your stupid tiny dog. His stupid tiny dog likes yours," Roope says. "Just enjoy it." 

"Enjoy it."

Miro can just tell Roope wants to say something inane about magic and movies and romantic bullshit that he says when he's trying to pull someone in a club. Roope might even be the type of guy to believe it. 

So instead, he says, "So you aren't on that dick?" Roope doesn't have to say whatever snarky comment he has next. Miro knows exactly what that look means. Roope would add, he doesn't know any guy that would turn it down, and that's just because Roope believes in helping his friends' egos.

It's not that simple. 

"That's just it. It would be worse, if--" if it didn't turn out okay. Sure, maybe he could be friends like with Roope, eventually, but they would still be getting married. Sports-married, and not real-married. It would probably be bad magic, going in with that kind of awkwardness. It all comes back to that, and Miro kind of wishes they just got it done, but then they'd both be miserable, maybe.

Magic doesn't want them to be miserable. It's not suffering for gain. Pain is a little bit of what they offer, as hockey players to the sports-magic, but it's not a lot; it's never meant to be more than their bruises and commitment to a check. 

"If you're not going to, you should at least get some kind of laid." Roope shrugs and drops back onto his bed. "I know you're mister chill, but seriously. Have some fun."

"I am." He is. Sometimes Miro's breathless at every new city they go to, the feeling of making it so very real in his chest; the idea that he could be here, and then Esa just shakes his head and smiles at him in those moments. It's all so new, but it's hockey, so it's a pattern he knows in his bones. Miro frowns, "And I spend like half my time with you! Do you think you're not fun?" 

"Well, obviously," Roope puts on that one really smug smile that he has. "But I can't babysit you all the time, kid. You're growing up. You're getting _married_." 

"Lay off," Miro says, a little too loud. Roope's only three years older than him, and he's Miro's closest friend here, but he also kind of hopes Roope isn't his roommate at the next hotel. He isn't wishing for Roope to be sent down, but at least Julius knows when to stop. It's not really a problem. Miro hates his friends, sometimes, but then it's just as easy to turn off his phone for a few hours and play 'chel with the people he actually misses. 

He can't miss Roope until he's down in Cedar Park. 

It's not like Miro sees Luka every day, and his summer is hopefully short. They won't see each other. He'll get over it, and they'll figure out what they're doing for their careers, and Miro will keep living with a pretty decent roommate. One with too many shoes and a cute dog and a tendency to lounge around in basketball shorts.

* * *

Luka's team is kind of annoying about how they haven't met Miro yet, when he lets it slip that he saw the other team in the AAC.

"Bring him to a practice sometime," Devin suggests.

And that's not fair, no one asks Devin to bring his wife. He complains, in exactly those words.

"We know his wife can outshoot him," DeAndre retorts. "So we wanna see if yours can too." 

Luka swallows a lump in his throat. Like. 

"Well, if he can't shoot," Jalen says. "Teach him. Lean in real slow. It works."

"Don't need advice from you, JB." 

"Oh, sure, don't listen to me," Jalen mock swoons. "Luka Dunkcic's got it all in the bag. Show off, make some sparks. Doesn't invite him around."

"I dunno," Harrison says. "Being around clowns like you would put my girl off."

* * *

For all their joking, Luka really doesn't want Miro around his team. They're mostly clowns, and Salah might tell him embarrassing stories from when Luka was sixteen, and Miro just doesn't need to know any of that. It's as bad as when Luka's mom brings out pictures of him as a little kid.

Luka has other friends, and they call and promise to visit, and Miro barely interacts with them when Luka's playing over online multiplayer. 

Miro has a Finnish contingent in actual Finland that's the same way.

On the other side, Luka does not make a habit of hanging around Miro's team friends, but Luka can't figure out if Ryan's magic or just Australian, so he's strapped for people who just _get_ magic. 

It's not like Luka does more rituals than the average player, and he doesn't think Julius is an expert for advice, but he knows the lay of the land here, and sometimes, it's nice to have someone checking on magical news with him. Social media is pretty easy to come by, but there's only so much a person can take of a 'magic or illusion' meme without complaining.

At some point, Julius starts sending him pictures of Miro, probably to make fun of the situation. They're not, like, bad pictures.

* * *

"It's fun," Segs says, "for a charity thing. We walk out on a runway, and then we serve drinks or deal cards." 

"Just don't get too drunk," Spezz says. "The house wins, always." 

The Stars host their annual casino night, and Miro signs a lot of things, and he learns how to deal some cards. 

No one tells Miro about what they really want him to do. They've got to play with the alcohol laws, so they don't want Miro serving out drinks or put any in his auction basket. They tell him to make a list of things to auction off for charity and also to make sure to coordinate outfits with his date, please.

And. They've gotten away with not doing much together, but even having a game doesn't excuse them now. 

The Mavs put Luka on the inactive list for the night, and Luka looks antsy about it. Like, Miro's not actually sure that scratches or the IR list is supposed to be used this way, but exceptions can be made, and this one ends up with Luka being unhappy with his clothes.

"I could be playing," he says, and Luka fidgets in his suit. "But instead, I get to be here." 

Miro winces. "Your team do a thing like this, too, right?" 

"In March. But, uh, you'd be on the road then." Luka keeps fussing with possibly the only tie he owns. "I hate these things. So I have to go to do this one. What am I even supposed to do?" 

"Look pretty and don't get drunk," Miro says, before he can stop himself. It's the same as Miro's supposed to do. "I don't know, I think everyone---all the wives are running things." 

"I don't get a say then?" Luka says, and he ends up taking the tie off, leaving the first two buttons of his shirt undone. 

"I don't think so." Miro looks up at him, and the scruff on Luka's neck shows through even more clearly like this. Miro thinks he might need to ask him to shave, but also, he realizes, MIro doesn't want him to. "Yeah, no tie?"

Luka frowns. "Here, wear this," he says, and he takes off his watch. "It'll look better on you." 

Miro looks at it, nestled in his hand. It's an expensive watch, some kind of Italian or Swiss brand. It looks flashy, so much gold like it's supposed to look like it's carved out of the stuff, and Miro doesn't even know where Luka even gets half his stuff, so it might be. "What?" 

"We're supposed to match, right? I think I have another." 

Miro swallows, and Luka helps fix the clasp over his wrist when he struggles with it. It makes him feel like a kid, and Luka's fingertips leave a tingle where they brush against Miro's skin.

* * *

Sometimes, there are awkward conversations. Like, about moving in together. Like about maybe the PR teams would want to film them going out and doing stuff, about how it's good to be seen in a certain way, in public. 

Luka thinks about none of that when they're talking about what the hell they're going to eat for dinner, and Miro says he might be going out. 

"You have a date?" Luka jokes, and then he doesn't like how the joke settles into the room. 

Miro stays silent. "I can handle myself," he says, after a moment. "It's not like it's your business." 

Luka starts to open his mouth, but--Miro's right, it's not his business. Except, "I'm your roommate. Just let me be prepared." 

Miro looks at him, like---like he needs an explanation, maybe. Luka doesn't know if he has one. 

"Be discreet. It's not like you're coming home with me," and Luka doesn't like that he's saying that, doesn't like the way his heartbeat's up from the thought of it. "Just--you know, the look of it." 

There's some advice that is still universal. There's a lot of other stuff to this arrangement that's plain embarrassing to discuss with the team like when 'Don't do anything too embarrassing in public, it makes us all look bad' includes, well, that. They're a nascent sports couple; even a good one, maybe. It would be a small scandal. Or maybe even a big scandal, depending how much there's hanging on the social fabric of the Dallas sports scene. 

They're not too famous, but just enough.

"You like blondes?" He's asking just to ask, trying to break the tension.

That's it. Luka shouldn't care. They're not really a thing, and they have their own lives. But, Luka can picture it, if he tries, Miro leaning down to kiss a tiny blonde girl, slipping a hand under her skirt; or maybe he likes them taller, with long legs, maybe someone he'd have to look up at, if she wore heels. He turns away those thoughts, and Luka bites the inside of his mouth. 

_Or,_ his traitorous thoughts continue, _ blond like Miro's friend Roope, with his stupid long hair_.

Miro looks at his watch and says, "I should go." 

He'll figure out what magic is supposed to tell him, but Luka would like to figure out how to stop _losing_ first.

* * *

Heading into the new year, things are good. They have a good spot in the season, and everyone's already talking about Miro for All Star, and he can't say he doesn't like that. 

Miro's not allowed to bet on himself for All Star, but he knows that some of his teammates are making private bets for the pot. He likes to think it's mostly when he's making the list, not if.

"Okay, now that that's settled," Spezz says. "Next order of business, the board." 

"No one's even had time to run their mouth, and we're not on the road," complains Segs. 

"Fining's open, you know that," Dicky points out. "We're having all sorts of guests next week. So, Miro, how much?" 

Miro looks up from his crooked laces. "What?" 

"How much on the board? Your boy's going to be guest of honor, we're pretty sure." 

It takes a second to realize that yes, the Stars are asking everyone to come to the games, to support Miro's All Star status. Luka mentioned that one of his teammates was doing a thing, too. Maybe it's a good thing that they give him a little pause to process it. It's one of the locker room rules for being shown on the video board or more embarrassingly, family on the road. Miro's not sure they need to be made to expand to this, but he puts on a thinking face. He settles on, "Hundred." 

They're playing the Kings. There's probably going to be something for Slovenia. It's no worse than Finnish night with the fans. There's one or two embarrassing pictures around from that. There's probably going to be one here, too. His answer gets some claps and some boos, and then Miro tries not to let it affect him, so he adds, "We're swapping jerseys too. And if you want money on board every time he shows, I'll be smart."

"This is on top of the normal WAGs and families bet?"

"WAGs include Miro's boy," Faks asserts. "Makes sense."

"I don't think that stands up to court," Feds says, and Miro makes a note to ask him to be his lawyer in fines court. 

Jamie adds, from his stall, "He's got a point. Not the last time we'll be seeing that one." 

"At least make it per point," Dicky says. 

That gets him a pat on the back, and then Spezz calls out, "Cut it out, he's still making rookie money." 

Miro nods. 

"Bish," Jamie adds, "I hear some baseball players are coming too." 

"Different day, I think." 

"Okay, but both of you, fine," Val insists, and apparently, there was a story behind this. Klinger tells them, later, about the time that Jamie lied to everyone to bring them to a baseball game. Everyone starts arguing away from Miro's fines.

* * *

Luka is _pissed_. Nothing was going his way, and he keeps missing, and it all sucks. The air rankles with frisson and charge, and his jersey is soaked with sweat, and he rips it off going off the court for the period. There's something terrible and angry and combative as he walks off the court, and he's never felt like sports-magic was conspiring against him before, but if that was anything, it was that. 

It could also be that Luka really fucking sucked. He could do better, magic or no. That was one of the worst nights of his life. 

It goes viral, and Luka wishes everyone would forget about it. He ripped his shirt, and he got several texts asking if he's going to be a wrestler like the Hulk, now. 

Julius does make fun of Luka, but that's not new; they talk magic, and he makes fun of Luka for it. Luka gets to make short jokes about someone who's not JJ. It's a fair exchange. 

Luka's teammates are the worst about it. He gets a meme from JB that's a side by side of Luka ripping over his jersey and Dak Prescott and his crop top. _think I need a jersey thing too?_

Luka can't help but shoot him a look across the locker room.

"You don't like the uniform that much, huh?" Dennis asks, surly behind the joke. It's his first game back, and Luka's grateful for the help on the court, but he really doesn't like Dennis right now. 

"I just--" and Luka makes a sound of frustration. He's done so badly this game, and it's just a lot. A lot of trouble. They have more jerseys. Luka kind of wants to cry and kind of wants to leave everything, forever. But there's still more game to play so he can't even run away. 

Miro doesn't make fun of him. Miro gets it; he sends a picture of Hugo and Leo looking sad on the carpet, which doesn't make Luka's mood better, exactly, but it's a mood. At least his dogs get it.

* * *

For his part, Miro got told to put on a Mavs jersey about five minutes before the cameras were on and to warmup like normal for his game. It was awkward; Miro really isn't a graceful dresser, and basketball jerseys don't have _sleeves_. He looks down and sees Luka's number, and the camera people just watch him run around. He feels self-conscious when they tell him to show off the number, and it's not like Miro really cares about the number on his jersey---but Luka _does_. 

And he's wearing Luka's jersey.

It's the done thing, Miro thinks, not dwelling on that last thought. Public gifts. No one expects them to do flowers. And everyone and their dog wants Luka in the NBA All-Star Game. Miro exhaled. He got it. Miro didn't know if it looked ridiculous to anyone else, but they were nineteen and going to their All Star Games. They were kind of a big deal, and this was the best press they could get, to play the angle up. 

He's kind of forgotten about that feeling when: 

"Hey, Miro, your boy doesn't look bad in victory green," someone says aloud, on the bus; hockey players have no sense of tact, and Miro doesn't quite catch whoever has their phone out. It's a tweet about Luka, of course, and when Miro watches the video, he realizes it's the partner to the one Miro made. He watches the video. It's short, but it's supposed to be _cute_. 

He goes for not being surprised. Sometimes his team jokes that he has no emotions, but it's easier to not show anything than to show the wrong thing. It wasn't his idea, but he isn't surprised. Stuff like this happens. But Luka is wearing Miro's number, and he has Miro's name on his broad shoulders in the tweet; it was probably there for all of a minute before the cameras were off.

But Luka's wearing Miro's jersey, and it's all out there because a public courtship is what they all deemed was best, or at least the semblance of one, but Miro can't look anyone in the eye right now. He looks good like that.

The part where his teammates try to rile him up, though? That part, he can almost pretend is normal. Miro smiles a little, trying to ignore any other teasing coming his way, and it's no fun if Miro doesn't react. The attention dies down into swabbling, like normal. 

Next to Miro, Esa--who is Miro's seat buddy and general chaperone, even if they don't call him that-- he looks the situation over, and he's the one that gets to say, "We can get them to stop, Hessu," and it's supposed to be reassuring. Miro knows the score, though. Luka and him are supposed to be in this together. 

Magically. Sort of half-written in the stars, kind of. It's supposed to be perfect, and ... they don't fight, but Miro doesn't know if he'll ever get to the point where he joins in the joking. Maybe never.

* * *

Luka hits one thousand points a few weeks before he turns twenty, on the road. 

He has double-doubles. He has _triple_-doubles. But this one is special. This one is a milestone, and he can do even better. In the first half, the first quarter, his shots sink like butter; he thinks he can make thirty, and he almost does. 

"Slow down," Dirk calls, but Luka makes his seventh straight shot, and then Luka passes to Ryan Broekhoff for a shot, and that goes in too. 

The game is amazing. He feels like he could be dancing. He doesn't kiss the court, but he feel buoyed by the ordinary sports-magic, and his own lightning sings back, and these moments are the ones he lives for. 

He thinks he'll wear these shoes again, and Luka's not one of those types to kneel and pray during half time, but he breathes it all in, and he traces the lighting bolts on his shoes. Symbols are strong, if they're reinforced.

* * *

The Stars are playing the Kings, and Anže Kopitar is going to be there, so there's going to be a jersey swap. Luka knows who Kopitar is, even if he says "No," when someone asks him if he actually knows him. Later, Miro actually tells Luka their offices want them to swap jerseys too. 

Luka complains a little to PR. 

"Sorry, we forgot to schedule you two swapping jerseys," is the apologetic answer. "We know there was the All Star stuff, but that wasn't a swap. And the road schedule didn't line up well until now." 

"We could do that jersey swap in our living room." 

"Do you want eight reporters in your apartment?" 

Admittedly, Luka doesn't.

It's a real shitty game. Luka has not watched many hockey games in his life, but this one is just not exciting, and there are moments of excitement, but not enough. The ice is bigger than the court, and he keeps thinking about where the marks on the ice are compared to where he's pounded his feet. 

Luka doesn't know the rules. He can spot that Miro skates like he's born to do it, and it's nice, but he's not the fastest; that might be Roope, if the guy with the long blond hair could be anyone else. He could try to read the names on the backs of the jerseys, but he doesn't know all their names or numbers. There's guys hitting each other, and there are guys avoiding being hit, and the puck is small. He thinks he could read their footwork if he tried, but mostly, Luka doesn't try. 

He wants to enjoy this game, he really does, but he ends up searching his own name on Twitter a couple of times.

The Kings score a goal. Luka's not sure if he should celebrate that because of his countryman or if he should be sad because of Miro. But mostly, Luka sighs and watches this game. The game drags on. There's maybe half the appeal of the last hockey game he went to, and he's in a VIP box with a great view, supposedly. 

He has a beer, and he's wearing a Stars jersey with his name on it. Now he has two of them; they gave him a Miro jersey the other day, and Luka still doesn't know what to do with it. He could put it in Miro's closet or hang it up, he supposes. He's going to have three, he realizes, once he swaps jerseys with Miro. 

The game is absolutely terrible, one of those that you have to watch and grit your teeth through.

It's admittedly bad form to swap jerseys with someone while you're wearing another team's jersey, so he stows his Stars jersey away shortly after the game ends. Luka scrolls on his phone while he waits for the Kings to do their after-game stuff, and he wonders if he's allowed to wander into the Stars room again. Maybe not, considering how bad that loss was. He considers texting someone, maybe even just a _ :c_ to Miro on the game. Maybe not; he'll hear about it at home, if Miro is up to it. 

He has to wait for Anže first, which is okay. They have to do a jersey swap and shake some hands.

Someone darts out of the room and makes for him, but he doesn't have a jersey, and unless Luka is very blind, this is not Anže Kopitar. He's a hockey player, for sure, or at least the Kings shirt he has on implies it. When he grins, there's more than a few missing teeth. He introduces himself, and says, "I love watching you," while extending his hand. "I'm not a Mavs fan, but you're a great player." 

Luka shakes his hand. The camerapeople go, "You know, let us take this picture." So they do. 

"Okay, thanks man." Luka puts on a smile. It's the face he has for fans, and even though this dude plays for the Kings, he's still a basketball fan. He knows how to handle those. "I'm here because of a jersey swap--" 

"Yeah, cap's coming out for you, but I wanted to meet you," the Kings player adds, before he goes. "Have a great season."

Anže Kopitar has a Kings jersey with Luka's name and number on it for him. The Kings asked, via the Mavs, what he'd like. Luka would rather wear a jersey with his own name on it, if he could help it. He's not going to pledge loyalties to someone, just because he's Slovenian. He'll hang the Kings jersey up next to the Stars one in his closet. 

They sign the jerseys and shake hands. The reporters like the pictures.

"You look shorter than you sound," Luka says, after basic greetings. This is the first time they've met in person, and Anže is only a friend of a friend, but it's not hard to kind of know each other in Slovenian sports circles. He's been introduced to Anže over the phone. 

"And you're taller." Anže laughs, and he smooths down his hair. "How's Goran looking? He complains you don't call."

"He's in Miami!" Luka slouches, but it's easy, like this. "I'm supposed to call? I'll tell you how he looks in a month, if he hasn't broken a hip." He might make Goran tell him himself, honestly; also, he doesn't have Anže's number, but he could get it. 

"Your season's doing good. I don't follow a lot, you know, but I have a couple of teammates who do. You want to meet them?" 

"I saw one already," he mentions. "But I think I'm on a little schedule. I have another jersey swap to do." 

"They double booked you?" He shakes his head. "Ridiculous." 

"It's just Miro," and Luka shrugs. "It's nothing big." 

"He's hard to play against," Anže says, non-committedly. The Kings won, so it's as diplomatic as can be. "Are you friends? Oh, wait, is he the one you're supposed to marry?" 

Okay, so that did reach Slovenian tabloids. Or at least Goran Dragić, which is at least the same thing for the NBA and half the other Slovenian athletes. Luka nods. "Yeah." 

"I'm waiting for an invitation, then," and Luka thinks he's half-serious. Anže raises an eyebrow. "Hockey players know how to have good weddings, believe me. Early summer's the best time." 

Luka heads over to the other locker rooms, and Miro's waiting for him--hair freshly washed, changed into a shirt and some shorts. A couple of Miro's teammates roll their eyes at Luka being there, but one of them waves, anyway. Not one of Miro's usual Finnish group, but Luka waves back, hoping desperately he doesn't have to remember the guy's name. 

If the cameras were expecting a kiss, they would have told them. Luka goes for the handshake and pull into a friendly hug; Miro goes, "Oh," softly. It's from the surprise.

"How are you?" Luka thinks he means it. Losing sucks. 

"Okay," Miro says.

There's a lingering moment, and Luka might even see Miro fighting off a smile. This isn't the time to talk about the game. That was a long game. This is a long night. Luka would be lying if he said it was a good one, but he could see Miro slough it out until the end. Luka understands that. Luka lets go, and the cameras get a few stills off before someone hands them jerseys. 

Someone in a Stars polo scrambles around for a sharpie, and Luka thinks he can be funny and ask, "How do you want me to make this out?" while they wait.

Miro snorts for the camera. "I think my sister wants your autograph." 

"Sign mine to Hugo, I think he's sad you play favorites." They might or might not cut that bit out, but it gets Miro to soften around the eyes, so Luka isn't regretting that. 

They finish signing, and they lean toward each other, handing off the jersey.

"Tell me this wasn't a jersey you were wearing tonight," Luka says, out of the side of his mouth. 

"Dare you to smell," Miro challenges, and Luka knows exactly how much sweat ends up in a basketball jersey at the end of the night. He can't imagine how much ends up in a hockey jersey. 

"Also Anže Kopitar wants an invitation to the wedding," he says, unceremoniously, when the camera people say they're good. 

"Is he your hockey friend already?" There's something weird in that sentence, but Luka leaves it. 

"No, but Goran might take sneak him in if I don't," Luka admits. "And Goran is a groomsman. Will be. One of mine." 

"Well, Kopitar can't be one of yours," Miro reasons. "People will get confused and think it's a faceoff."

Luka thinks that's a joke. It's pretty good. 

And. This is the first time they're really talking about the wedding like it's happening. 

Luka breathes in, and there's a crackle in the AAC that he can almost faintly taste.

The cameras are probably still rolling. 

A reporter jokes that it's past their bedtime. 

"I hate that," Luka says. 

"We're not little kids," Miro agrees, as the press moves, probably to make midnight deadlines. Luka can't imagine what Miro was like as a kid. Still a little serious, still probably the same and determined. He wonders how small they make skates, if he was born to skate like they say Luka was born to play basketball. 

Miro folds the jersey over his shoulder. Luka can't help but think about last week, about how the Stars tweeted out a video of Miro warming up in Luka's jersey and half of his team retweeting it before asking if Miro can shoot a ball. Luka's going to have to coax him out to a Mavs practice one day.

* * *

Luka almost doesn't see it happen. They're playing a later than usual game against the Pistons, and the All Star stuff happens a little bit earlier. He sends off a 'Good luck' to Miro before he realizes it, before his warmups and everything, and well, he's not exactly certain when Miro's supposed to skate. 

Miro goes down. He barrels around--not a corner, but whatever the approximate thing is on curved rink--and he goes down. Luka doesn't know if he sees it live, but he sees the clip on Twitter, and it looks bad, even when Miro gets up. 

Luka feels static on his jersey. 

Miro comes home after the weekend, Esa helping him with his bags after the flight back, and Luka can taste it, the lingering taste of something, what back in Madrid, the coach would say was _mal sabor_ and spit to his left before calling in a specialist. 

"Something is off," Luka says, while he does some packing for his next road trip. He can't place it, but it's subtly wrong, and it's something to do with Miro, and that it makes the hair on his arms stand up in a bad way. "Different."

"I didn't get a hair cut," Miro quips. "If you ask." 

"No, like, energy," Luka sighs. There's just. There's just a feeling he's used to in his home, in their apartment, and something's disrupted the balance. It's not like when there's people over; that's passive. This is something actively distasteful. "Did you mess with magic?" 

"What, you think someone cursed my ankle?"

"Maybe," he breathes. "Someone see it?"

"You wanna look?" Miro's leaning against the kitchen counter, and Luka thinks he might have shifted his weight off of the ankle. "Not yet. I lost the edge. It happens."

"Maybe," and Luka's no expert, but it feels wrong, and he can't leave it alone; there's an anger building under his fingertips, and that--that would make sense, after what Miro's skills competition was like. But he got up again, so that must count for something. 

They end up on their couch, and Miro puts his foot in Luka's lap. Luka isn't a medical professional, but his ankle doesn't look broken. That's promising. "It hurt?"

"No," and he grimaces. "But. Curses are not cool. "

There's a sort of, like, frission, when he touches Miro's ankle with his fingers. Maybe it's a little like the opposite of when he can feel a spark light through him. Luka has never been able to feel this before. Luka shivers a little bit, and he thinks he hides it well. Like. Luka knows that magic is a little of his own thing, and magic is true, and it hurts and heals as much as any. 

"What's that?"

"Are you sure? You felt that?" Luka's used to other people not feeling magic. The magic of the field and the court and the ice is infectious, but off of it, it made people look twice at him. 

"Yeah, it's like--you," Miro finishes weakly. "Like you're all spark."

Luka frowns. "You sure you've no magic?" 

"You see me do--?" And he vaguely waves his hand.

And the knot of wrong, thickly woven, loosens, and the magic unleashes, and Miro grits his teeth, Luka rubs small circles on his ankle, and he doesn't even try to and Luka feeds small sparks to meet the backlash, and Miro's face softens, his breathing slows.

"Better?"

"Yeah."

Luka swallows. He's never been good at medical or magical first aid, and one of the problems is connection. Miro looks up at him, and he has a small smile, and there's a small, sinking feeling in his throat, and Miro says, "Thanks."

"No, uh, you're okay."

Luka's the one that's not okay. Magic is like breathing to Luka. He doesn't make a habit to notice or try to notice anything different about his magic, but around Miro, it's _different_. It wants Miro's attention, and Luka can feel it pool right underneath Luka's skin. (There's a fond feeling that creeps up on Luka when Miro is around, the kind of thing that Luka doesn't like thinking about, the kind of thing that Luka never knows how to express in case it's too much.) Luka has time to find the right thing to say, to do. 

"How's the foot?" 

Miro nudges Hugo, who really likes being underneath the coffee table more than is good for him, with his feet. "Trainers said, could have been bad. It worked out. They wonder what defense against it, so. Thanks." 

"That's good," Luka answers, and he swallows, not wanting to see whatever look Miro's giving him. Luka did that, and he's not an big deal, in the magic world--he is so much a bigger deal in basketball by magnitudes. Magic works better with a better connection, and --

Luka thinks he gets it. 

The ritual is the relationship itself: it's a life for sport, and it's a life for more than sports. This could have only happened here, in Dallas. That's when they're ready for marriage. Luka has gotten used to the idea of marrying Miro but he doesn't know if he _wants_ to. 

And that's what's really being asked. 

Luka's magic flickers from his fingers when the thinks about the future, and he can't think about anything concrete that's different from what he has now.

* * *

The NBA All Star Game is a lot. 

Luka misses a half-court shot during his skills competition, and he does a lot of media, and he makes a few bets with Ayton who still owes him money from the draft. It's a lot to take in, but he'll get through the packed press conferences and interviews that test all the language skills he can muster.

There's an injury on the team, and for half a second, Luka thinks he was going to go to the All Star Game anyway. 

He's not the replacement. 

He still _plays_, for Team World. It's a hodgepodge in the room, and Dirk looks at them all with a goofy grin. Luka doesn't want to intrude on this moment, and he feels it, if no one else does. 

"Don't hog the ball like Luka," he says, solemnly, as a coach. “I want us to share the ball a bit and not have one guy dribble it 20 times and hoist something up, like Luka does with the Mavs.”

Luka gets a few sidelong glances but he laughs at it. It's the Rising Stars challenge. He pretends to let out some curses when Dirk steps out of the room for a moment, to talk to people who can't say that it's going to be his last All Star Game. They all know it is, though. 

"That's heavy," Lauri Markkanen says, passing by Luka to get a towel. He felt it, too, the way that some more magic dispersed into the fervor of All Star Weekend, but also, some of it directly onto Luka. "Good luck with that." 

Team World plays some good basketball, but they lose. Luka tips off against Fox. It's fun, this kind of basketball, no worries except for a show and pride about being a player with good hands, good vision, and good feet. It's still not enough. He wonders if this is what it's like losing to Canadians in hockey. It's like. 

Luka still makes a point later to find Lauri because there are few upsides to this season, but---Miro is probably one of them, and Luka doesn't know what to do. 

"You want my advice?" Lauri narrows his eyes. "Don't know why you're asking me, but I guess I owe you for the assists, yeah? I can't help you with the magic, you know; your element isn't mine." 

He doesn't need Lauri's expertise on his magic. Luka has lightning in his step, and he doesn't spark in the middle of the game, and that's enough for him

"I don't know a lot of Finnish guys," Luka admits. It's basically just Miro and his crew, none of which he'd ask for this. "And I'm, I dunno, maybe something I'm missing. Something expected?"

Lauri's eyebrows raise into his hairline as he parses that. "Where do you meet someone from Finland?" 

"Dallas." And he doesn't elaborate. Lauri might or might not know about Luka's whole thing. He might not check the news. Luka doesn't know how much the press travels outside the city, and he's pretty sure only most of Dallas cares. "It's a thing." 

"If you're a thing, I don't know why you need me to tell you anything." Lauri quickly answers a text, not looking up. "There's no special password you need to ask someone out." 

"Not much of a thing." Luka doesn't really know what to call them. It's something. "But I--" 

"That's easy," Lauri says. "Say you want your dick wet, and you'll get the answer, quick." 

That sounds like shitty advice, he doesn't say. Luka rolls his eyes. He can feel his face go red, and he thinks about Miro with someone else, going for that line, and he doesn't like that. It puts a sour taste in his mouth.

"There's your answer, then. Go for it. You're a basketball player, not an accountant or something. You're an athlete." 

"But how," Luka tries to put this lightly and also avoid all the criticism from everyone--his coaches, opponents, Dirk--about his fitness. "How do I--" 

"What," Lauri runs a hand through his hair. He makes a face like he's not the one _fucking married with a kid_, and Luka can't imagine being either of those things, a husband or a father. Then he snorts a little and smiles when he asks, "More than that?"

It's a loaded question. After a second, Luka nods, a little smile that says he wants to die a little on the outside. He doesn't have a word for this, whatever the thing he and Miro are doing, and he doesn't know if he needs one, but it would make things much easier if there was. "I think--I think my magic likes him, too." 

Which is a ridiculous statement to anyone who doesn't have magic, but Lauri does. Lauri looks at him for a long second. "Move in together. Figure it out. Nothing takes the bumps out like moving in together." 

Luka's face says it all. "We already--" 

Lauri laughs. He doesn't let up once Luka shows weakness. "Then get a dog." 

"We have dogs. Well, only Hugo is mine." This is common knowledge, but now Luka knows that Lauri doesn't look at Luka's posts. Ever. 

"Have a kid and get married then." A pause. "In that order is fine. Americans are the fussy ones about the other way around." 

"Is that how it worked for you?"

He shrug, and then adds, "Eventually." There's a story to that that Luka might get when he's drunker.

Luka looks down in shame, and Lauri mercifully doesn't get that they're going to get married, and that was a little of Luka's _problem_. They had to figure it out before.

"It's a sports marriage," he admits, slowly. To head off the question, "He plays hockey."

"Finnish," Lauri muses. He frowns, thinking about it. He doesn't comment on the sports marriage, doesn't even make a joke about how they must be in dire shit to even want to try that. There's sports marriages to end curses, to prevent horrible outcomes, to bless the city, and more. He doesn't ask why a hockey player, either. Luka doesn't have that answer, and--

"Hockey in Dallas. Am I supposed to know every hockey player? Everyone plays, Luka." Lauri sounds thoughtful, and Luka doesn't know if he likes that look. "But maybe, you know, here are a few things to say." 

Luka repeats it a couple of times before Lauri smiles at him. 

"You'll do good, kid." 

Going back to Dallas after the All Star Game is a little anticlimatic. There are games to be won, still, but there's probably no chance that Luka's team is making the playoffs. It's the barest of outside chances. This season is still the _worst_ he's ever had. 

It sucks. 

But.

* * *

Miro isn't sure if he's supposed to congratulate Luka for ... Going to the All Star Game and not actually being in the game? He isn't sure why that works that way, for basketball. They might not have put him in a skills competition if they had everyone else to pick from. So he settles for, "Did you bring me back gifts?" 

He doesn't expect any, so it's more a quip than anything. He didn't bring Luka back anything, either.

"Kind of?" 

Miro looks at him. Luka has a scraggly beard growing in, and it's kind of terrible, but Miro can't grow any facial hair of his own, so this, at least, might be a little resentment. Maybe Miro will have something by the end of playoffs. "Really?" 

Luka makes one of his goofy faces. Dallas loves him, and fans make gifs of that face. Luka-mania, they call it. _Luka magic_ they call it, when he's on the court. 

"I would, you know, to be nice. But I, uh," and he shakes his head. He digs in his duffel bag. Luka has some bandanas for the dogs, which Miro expects. Luka buys shoes and dog stuff and clothes that Roope says are the height of fashion. 

Luka fiddles with putting the bandanas on the dogs before giving up and leaning against the back of their couch.

"I mean, I picked up a few other things." Then Luka opens his mouth and says the sappiest shit Miro's ever heard, in very bad, but kind of intelligible _Finnish_. 

Miro splutters. 

Luka's pronunciation wasn't so good, but Luka just said that. Miro wonders if he really has been obvious after all, and it's not just his friends giving him shit. It's not the worst thing in the world; honestly, it's kind of the opposite. Miro's glad he's sitting down. 

Luka looks oblivious, a little sheepish. "I sound terrible, probably." 

But, carefully, Miro looks up to Luka and--

"Not good?" Luka asks. He follows that with one of his thinking faces, and all of his faces are generally goofy, but Miro can tell he's a little resentful. "Shit, I should have knew Lauri was fucking around. I hope, you know, it wasn't bad." 

Instead of _embarrassing himself_, Miro asks, slowly, "Lauri?" 

"Eh," Luka shrugs. "You know, Markkanen. Bulls? Fire? We were at All Star together." 

"Wait, you ask Lauri Markkanen for this?" Miro can't believe this. _Lauri Markkanen._ The only Finnish dude in the NBA. That was such embarrassing shit he said, and Luka doesn't even know. 

Miro kind of wants to ask for Markkanen's number, but this is the absolute wrong time to ask. Also, Miro kind of _hates_ Markkanen right now, more than any patriotic supporting interest in his countryman can overcome. His chest feels like he's been bagskated or someone's used his chest as a punching bag.

"I wanted to be, like," and Luka trails off. Miro can almost understand that, he guesses. Genial, maybe. Trying. A nice surprise. It's not a surprise that Miro would pull, not least because Luka speaks twice as many languages as he does, but, it's a nice gesture, anyway, and he probably wanted to tell Miro 'You're actually okay' or something like that. "And he told me a little to say."

Luka has no fucking idea what he just tried to say, is what that means. Miro thinks he might need to throw up to get rid of the feeling that's washing over him. 

"If you want to learn," Miro starts, before he realizes he should stop himself. "We can start with _hei_." 

_"Hei,"_ Luka repeats, and he rolls the word on his tongue. "Just hey?" 

"Hi," Miro agrees. 

"_Zdrȁvo_," Luka offers. "It's like hi." __

Miro repeats it, feeling clumsy with the word, but it's a fair exchange.

* * *

Luka has the distinct feeling Lauri was fucking with him. 

It's not like he was expecting Miro to, like, drop to his knees or want to go out to buy rings but--he wasn't expecting a small language lesson. Luka likes being able to speak to people, yeah, and he could always learn another language or two, and Miro has a small pleased smile for when Luka says something right, and Luka likes that. 

Sometimes, Miro volunteers a word, and he bites his lip when Luka has to say it about ten times before he says, a little laugh underneath, "Like that, that's okay." 

Other times, Miro's Finnish pack are around, and they're opinionated. Luka wants to say that he speaks more languages than them, but they're actually no worse than any of his teammates while he learnt Spanish, so when Roope winces, and asks in English, "What kind of accent's that, would you say?" 

It's almost touching when Julius argues, "It's no worse than when Esa practices his Swedish."

"Esa, he can't defend himself," Miro puts in. "Not here." 

"Do I have to defend me?" Luka wonders. He feels like he should be insulted. 

Lauri may have been fucking with him, and Miro won't tell Luka what he ended up saying, but asking any of these other people for help would probably make Luka's life miserable.

* * *

When they all find out, Luka doesn't know what's going on, who does this? The Mavs trade Harrison Barnes _in the middle of a fucking game_, and Luka was playing on the court when Harrison finds out. 

Harrison watches from the bench as he can't go back to the bench, and it's worse than when someone told Luka that he didn't make it to the All Star Game. They didn't even wait to let him finish it out. It's terrible. Luka can stammer out a, "That sucks, man." Trades are part of the deal, here, but no one expects this. 

All the starters at the beginning of the season have been traded. It's just Luka left. His fellow rookies have worked their way into the starting lineup because there were holes to fill, and Luka should be happy for them, but all he can feel is the emptying roster and very little for everyone to depend on. 

Later, Harrison claps Luka on the back and says, "Basketball's tough that way, you know? Good luck, kid." 

Luka has to be the guy, and they're playing a man down for the rest of the game, and there's a sudden heaviness that he has to force himself to smile through. It's a heavy cloak of something intangible, and Luka thinks this is what he needs to bear. 

They win.

* * *

The Stars lose the last game of their homestand to the Hawks. Miro shrugs off the loss, and rounding up Esa, Roope, and Julius to go to a basketball game the next day might not have been Miro's best idea, but he knows he should watch another basketball game sometime. They have a day off, and it's not too hard to buy four seats. His other alternative would be going with Luka's mom again, and the amount of people that try to talk to _her_ was intimidating. At least this way, he can shit talk in Finnish. 

"What, couldn't get us courtside seats?" Esa asks, when they settle into the lower bowl. Lower than the lower bowl, actually, and Miro forgets they add more seats onto covered ice. "Rads would get us courtside seats." 

"I'm not Rads. Do you need to count my teeth?" Miro frowns. Rads has probably gone to more Mavs games than Miro has. He shouldn't be feeling any kind of way about that, since it's just true, but Miro wonders if he should be watching more games. How does anyone have the time?

"He doesn't want to distract his boy." Roope leans back in his seat, and he nearly dumps popcorn over Miro's lap. "Probably would be bad." 

"Are they supposed to be good this year?" 

Julius cracks his knuckles and leans forward to catch tipoff. "How would I know?" 

"Luka's good," and Miro swallows as he sees Luka steal the ball. And then he dangles past a few guys and passes across the court. 

"I think you have to say that, but he is doing good."

He's on the court a lot. Most of the game. And Miro gets it; this is what they mean when a player can carry a basketball team, and there's a lot of action back and forth. Even from here, in the seats, Miro can feel the game and the pride and joy that Luka plays with. He makes a three and steps back, and he's smiling the whole way as he goes to the chairs, and his teammates on the bench (is it a bench if they're all in chairs?) congratulate him. 

Miro keeps being drawn to his plays. Luka magic, they call it. There was a call somewhere that solidified it; he heard it one place and then it was everywhere. Luka's exciting to watch, and he keeps pulling off ridiculous moves, and Miro half-expects the court to go electric underneath his feet. Luka is magic, and it's not easy to forget. It's magic in a dumb way, like old stories, the kind where the farmer runs off into the woods because he has to get a second look. Miro knows enough magic people to know that Luka's just--- he's special. 

He's _magic_ but also, he's _Luka_. 

Luka stands at his line and makes a free throw. Miro lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding. For something so little as a point in basketball, it feels so big.

The Mavs lose by one point.

* * *

Luka finds out about the picture by walking into practice and it being stuck in his stall. No one in the room can keep a straight face, and at first, he doesn't even register what it is. 

It's Miro, in a photo spread. These things are usually bad, and Luka remembers all of his at the All Star Game, but this is Miro in a suit, climbing into a car like he's in a fucking action movie. And his teammates have put enough copies of it to make life difficult for him to avoid it or avoid commenting on it. He's not sure who put the idea out there, but they're all in it, now. 

"Well?" Ryan asks. 

"We only need one framed for the living room," Luka says, half-forcing a smile. At the same time, it would fit in with the covers that he has of himself. Luka's ego is healthy enough to admit he searches for himself and his name sometimes, and it's mostly good things, unless someone says he's not winning Rookie of the Year, but he doesn't care enough to argue with critics. He's gotten his fair share of those, over the years, too, and enough from people who supposedly care about him rather than fans. 

Luka probably spends a little too much time on Twitter.

The picture sticks with him. Luka thinks he might get one framed and put next to one of his covers, for real. Miro, in person, does not look that good; that's professionals helping him, but _most_ of it is just Miro, with clearer skin. It's not a thought Luka wants to dwell on at home, where Miro speaks Finnish to the dogs and they yip back, like they're having a real conversation. 

Maybe they are. Maybe Miro can understand them; he's more open when he deals with the dogs, less guarded.

* * *

Miro can handle all sorts of surprises, but the short story is: he's confused when he gets home and the dogs are lined up near the door, all _three of them_, the last wearing a ridiculous bowtie that's way too big for its little body and absolutely adorable. 

On one hand, cute puppy. On the other hand, there is no explanation for this.

"You know, I thought Hugo and Leo could use a little brother," Luka says when Miro turns to him, astonished, before he can ask the question.

"What's his name?" Miro bends down to touch Luka's--_their_ newest dog? In puppy-like fashion, he bounces up Miro's shin but lets him pet him before bouncing away and back. What was Miro going to tell him? No, you can't have the puppy? He's absolutely adorable.

"You pick," Luka insists. 

Max is a hit on Instagram. Luka mainly uses his Instagram for the dogs and Mavs promo. His account has way too many followers for Miro to think about it. The first time Max shows up in Luka's story, Miro is pretty sure of it, since Roope looks up from his phone and says, "You two were expecting a puppy?" 

"Another tiny dog, really?" Julle follows up with, after he looks over Roope's shoulder. "Guess anything bigger might eat the rest."

"Who has a puppy?" Segs asks, like the mention of it lured him over to the Finnish corner. Pitty steps out of his way. 

"Miro."

"What kind?"

"What else? A pom." Esa answers, and he's not even looking at his phone, which is super unfair. "He won't take a dog he can't bench press."

Miro puts on his humble face, but it doesn't work, and it doesn't hold, not when Luka's messaged a short video of Max trying to get Hugo and Leo to play with him. 

"Being a dog dad is the best," Segs says, tapping Miro on the shoulder, as he gets back to his practice routines. It is, and Miro's not even going to protest.

* * *

The longer story is that maybe Lauri wasn't so full of shit, after all.

* * *

Luka's season ends. It's Dirk's show, by then. Luka doesn't want to slack off; he got the assist when Dirk moves up in all time scoring history, and that's the level of play he should keep going. 

Dirk pulls him aside before their last game. "Look, kid--" 

Luka shakes his head. "You're not leaving to go to some cave in Germany, right?" because he isn't. He's tied to Dallas, irreparably. "Tell me what I need to know whenever you want." 

"If I end up coaching you," Dirk tries for menacing and fails. "I'll have you do extra laps." 

"I've had worse coaches." Luka grins up at him. "It's all you. Your night."

"And it'll be yours," he says, patting Luka on the shoulder. "Every night after." 

He said it, and it's true. It's hard, though, and the season wears down on a person, and Luka doesn't think he can remember when the last time he had a break was. That doesn't matter. It didn't matter, at the time. He got medals and awards and he won Eurobasket, so it was worth it.

Maybe he'll go to a beach.

* * *

Miro asks, once, what it's like to be magic on the court. 

"Good." Because it is. Luka's always magic, though, and he tells Miro that. He lives like that. The magic that someone might feel, that someone might see? That's the fans wanting to see something special, and because Luka is really good, he manages to deliver because he's a professional. That's all. 

He's also seen Miro play and skate, and he wears the weight of everything on him like it's nothing. That's something special, and maybe it's a kind of magic on its own. Luka adds, "You know, maybe you are, too." 

Shaking his head, Miro says, "I just play. I let the hockey gods and magic decide." 

"Magic doesn't win anything," Luka says. There's a fervent belief, somewhere, in sports, but magic is not fair and magic does not tip games, and those aren't contradictory statements. "It just is." 

It is, and maybe it's made Luka's life easier, but he was never going to live a normal life anyway.

* * *

The Stars're in a bar, celebrating a playoff series win. It's wonderful, but six games is hard, and they only have a short downtime. Coach Jim looks the other way but strongly implies they need to go, go, go after one night.They shouldn't be out too much, but no one really looks closely at anyone giving Miro drinks.

Because Julius is the absolute worst, he holds up his phone. Miro isn't actually sure that he sends a snap, but he might have. 

"Oh, cut it out," he says. "It's only to your boy. He's seen worse." Julius then grins in that way of his, when he thinks he's being edgy and clever and is really just being a shit. "Or at least I'd think so." 

Miro feels his face heat up a little more. "Shut up." And then, worriedly, he follows up with, "Wait, why do you follow him on snap?" 

"He posts your dogs," Julius says. He shrugs. "Why not?" 

A moment passes. Miro doesn't even follow Luka on Snap. Maybe he should. It's not like, private or anything. It's the same as Luka's Insta; he reposts team shit and promos and sometimes the dogs. 

"I'm not sending him dick pics or anything. Worry about Roope for that," he adds, and Julius smiles with all his missing teeth, laughing at his own joke. 

Miro laughs at the tone, but he feels uneasy about it. It's apparently written all over his stupid fucking face because the room goes deathly still. He adds, weakly, "_I'm_ not sending them, so he's welcome to."

It really falls flat. Miro kind of wonders if he should, if sending pictures is an option. Roope definitely would say he should. 

"Oh," Julle says. He goes very quiet for a long moment, and Miro looks for an exit right before Julius asks, "So you like them big?"

Miro groans. He takes everything he ever said about Julius back. He's just as bad as Roope. He can't believe his not-thing with Luka is this interesting. "You're not my wingman." 

"No," Julius agrees, laughing a little. "The front office did that for you. But if you're going to hit on Val, you're on your own." 

"Julle, just--" Miro feels his face heat up, but it's probably just the whiskey. 

"No more Snaps, I got it, kid." Julius slings an arm around Miro's shoulders, a little awkwardly but Miro wasn't that much taller. "Where's Esa? Is he drunk enough to puke on shoes?"

* * *

Luka tells himself he isn't going to do anything for a week. He's going to lay down in bed, and then he's going to not care about the diet he's on to slim down, and he's going to pet some dogs. 

That sounds like a plan. 

The apartment still _feels_ lively. Miro is busy with practice, like it's still in the season, but the way playoffs wears off on everyone is different. 

"It's just a hockey game," Miro says, when Luka catches him in the kitchen on one of the game days. "Nothing big." 

Luka might believe him, but he understands games like that. They're only games until you win them. 

"You'll do great."

* * *

The Stars get eliminated in game seven. 

Miro doesn't want Esa consoling him in gentle words. He doesn't want Julius making encouraging but slightly bitter remarks. He doesn't want to keep thinking about Roope's broken foot. The plane ride is silent back to Dallas. He puts in his music and doesn't talk to anyone, but he accepts Roope's nudge with his shoulder. 

Jamie stoically offers to do drinks and dinner at his. Miro doesn't want to. He just wants to sleep, right now. There's more team dinners for later, lockers to clean. So much stuff to do. Miro's tired. The season is over, and summer is too long. 

His apartment has dogs. It also has Luka, dozing on the couch. They're a month into the playoffs which means Luka's season has been over for a month. 

Miro has to ask, "Why are you still here?" because, well, he could have gone back home. Clear out must have already happened, and there's nothing for him to stick around for except maybe--

"I fell asleep," Luka says, stretching out. "Couldn't make it to bed. That was a rough game." 

"Yeah," and there's nothing else for Miro to say. He packs away that Luka was watching for later. When later will be, Miro can't tell. 

Miro lets out a breath, and Luka gets up slowly, and Miro leans on the couch. It's a moment, if he ever had to say there was ever a moment. Miro knows about using moments. Miro leans into him, and the angle is awkward. His lips tingle, Miro thinks. Electric. Post game adrenaline catches up with him--it gets the blood up, even through the miserable loss. 

It's hot. Luka grips a hand around Miro's arm, and Miro thinks he can be drunk on it, this feeling.

* * *

Luka's not there in the morning, so Miro guesses they're not talking about it.

* * *

Miro doesn't skate for a couple of weeks, but he doesn't touch online games or try to talk to anyone who he can't see. It mostly works. 

Luka goes to the NBA Awards, and he doesn't invite Miro. 

But Miro's crush doesn't go away, even with the distance of the summer. Miro still thinks about Luka's hands. He doesn't think he can stomach being married and not talking about this. If ignoring it might be bad for the magic, he doesn't know what this would do. Magic's overrated, if he feels like this about something it wants. 

That's the worst part: Miro still thinks they're getting married, and for all he knows, Luka's trying to find ways out of it. The best strategy is avoidance, and maybe that problem will go away. It's easier that way. He spends the whole time in Finland. It's summer with his family and his sister and his dogs. He still has Max and Leo, at least. 

Miro sees Roope and Esa and Julius and _Klinger_ at the alumni game, along with half of the Finnish players in the league, it seems like. Most of the retired ones, too. The game's fun, good enough to shake off the rust, and Miro can listen in to all the old guys making jokes about their joints. They play normal teams, and then they play the Dallas Stars alumni versus everyone else, and Miro can feel that he's in a long line of tradition, and Finland is watching. 

The Stars have camera people who go around and ask them a lot of questions, too. 

"They didn't ask me questions," Klinger complains, even though the whole thing is about Finland and the Stars. He shoves at Miro, in some attempt to topple him over while Klinger invades their Finnish Dallas Stars picture for the media. 

"Are you moving to Finland?" Esa asks, and Klinger scowls. 

It's nice to see them all again, though Roope is terrible when he finds out about how Miro's summer is going. They make tentative plans to do something later, something that's not pre-season training. 

"You taking your boy, too?" Roope asks.

"I wouldn't know," and Miro knows the exact moment Roope's thought process goes off.

"Oh, you have boy problems." Roope shakes his head. "What a troublemaker. This is why you're moping? Just send him a dick pic, and stop acting like he doesn't call." 

He doesn't call, Miro wants to protest. And Miro doesn't know if Luka would pick up to know the answers. But he definitely won't do this, just to keep Roope from the satisfaction. 

Roope laughs at him and pats Miro's shoulder.

By the time Miro and Luka are both in Dallas by August, just in time to renew the lease, Miro's forgotten to plan out the avoiding him thing. 

Luka works out. He works out a lot, like any pro athlete. Miro didn't think Luka was out of shape before, but he plays basketball. He could get into better shape. He did, and the first time Miro's faced with it is in his own apartment. It is kind of embarrassing how much in shape Luka got, and his beard is better, and honestly, this makes Miro's problem worse, not better. Like, substantially worse if they're talking about it. 

"You look," Miro starts, and he doesn't know how to finish. "Good." 

"I wanted a six-pack," he said, and he cracks his knuckles behind his head, and his shirt is loose on his body. It's a lot. "Promised my boss. How was Finland?"

"Took a break, mostly." Miro didn't go fishing much or anything, but it was a solid break. He slept a lot and caught up with friends in the Liiga, who still didn't believe Miro was grown enough to leave the country or some bullshit. "How was yours?"

"I was building a house." Luka takes a moment to look out the window. The view in Dallas is different. Luka's building a house back in Slovenia; of course, that's home for him, and Miro would probably make a house back home eventually. 

Miro got his own place, but it's not completely his.

"I think you'd like it," Luka offers, quietly.

"You want me to visit?" Miro could, and a little flip in his stomach tells him he should slow down about those thoughts. Still, they aren't especially close, not after this. 

"It's yours too," he adds, after a long moment. "For a little bit in the summer, at least. You can pick all white furniture." 

"You were just going to surprise me with a house?" Miro asks, astonished, when the sentence sinks in. A long moment passes. Miro thinks about it. A watch, a dog, a house, and--what the hell, that's a big escalation. "But uh, you don't call."

Luka shrugs, and his face is a little red. "You didn't. And losing sucks so I gave space. Your IG looked nice." 

He has him there. Miro looks down, sits down on their apartment couch. It's something. 

"When's camp for you?" 

"Soon, but I have a couple of days, you know. My mom's bringing Hugo down tomorrow." 

"You didn't take Max." 

"I wanted to," Luka admits. "But maybe it gave me an excuse to call." 

Which he didn't take, but Miro almost understands. This is too much to handle right now, and Miro doesn't know if he shows it, so he says he's taking the dogs for a walk.

He does.

It is a lot to go through. Leo and Max are easy into their harnesses, and they don't have to think about stuff like this. The walk goes by fast. He's drenched in sweat by the time he's done. Dallas in August is miserable. Miro makes a list to start on when he gets back.

Luka's scrolling through his phone and absentmindedly leaning back, and Luka looks up when Miro walks in.

"He retired, and the world didn't explode," Miro reasons, first of all. A part of him says, but it's only the off-season, no one knows what's going to happen in the next season. No one. He finds some water to chug.

"Well," Luka starts, and Miro waits. "The world was never going to explode." 

The stakes were never that high. But Miro doesn't like to dwell on events that will never come to pass, so he takes a breath and asks it. "Why leave?" 

"I wouldn't want anyone to see me like that. So--" 

"You left." 

He nods. "You weren't ever online, so I left it." 

"And if I wasn't--" Miro tries to find the word, but it seems he gets his meaning across. Because Luka was right, it could have been a one time thing; losing hurts, and losing in the playoffs also hurts. There can only be one winner, and Luka's used to winning, and Miro knows what it means to lose, but it crushes every time. That's something that someone needs to redirect energy in, and usually, Miro tapes his stick and redoes his laces and sharpens his skates once, after a loss like that. Other people drank or stayed up all night or did drugs or went to burn it off with something.

"I thought the six pack would help with that," he says, and it's so fucking cocky that Miro has to laugh. 

"You didn't need one," Miro admits. There's a lot of other things to say, stuff about magic and stuff about Luka's magic and stuff about what now. 

"Tell that to my coaches, and they'll let me slack off on my diet, I think." He grins and continues, "I need to cheat more on the diet. My boy likes me softer." 

Luka bites his lip again, once he realizes he said that. "Um."

Miro thinks he's burning up, from that. Luka just said that, and--it's bad and something that Miro would excuse in his jerk off material, but Luka's right _ here. _

"How about," Luka says, after a too-long silence. "I like you. Want to make out?" 

It's bad, but Miro will take it. It might be bad that Miro will take that as recovery time. He breathes out, "Say that in Finnish, maybe."

Luka does, and he blushes while he does, a little clumsily. Miro stares. 

"I bugged Lauri," he says. And then double checked with Julius laughing at him. "Tell me he's not fucking with me again." 

Miro thinks, at this point, he wasn't fucking around with this the first time. He leans into Luka's space. "He's not." 

Luka grins, and Miro thinks he can see a flash in his eyes. Miro doesn't want to be the one to break this contact, and after a long moment, Luka looks up and away, and he says, "I like Dallas." 

Miro does, too.

"As long as they want me, you know." 

Even casual fans have to ask, in today's NBA where players ask for trades because they're unhappy, how long Luka might stay. Miro swallows, and he _gets_ it, and Luka--Luka doesn't just mean his team. 

He says, "Oh," and then, after half a second, "Yes."

* * *

"You're easy to live with," Luka says, later. "We have three dogs. I think I could marry you."

"You think you could marry me?" Miro repeats. "What about all the magic parts?" 

"A marriage is like--" Luka starts, and this is what was the problem, a marriage was something you live. The ritual is that leap of faith itself, to want to do it. There's something that seems to build like a crackle under his skin, and Luka can't put a name to it, but he opens his mouth and fails to find the words. He weakly finishes, "You don't even send me bad memes." 

"You want me to start?" Miro looks like he might crack up or show an emotion or _something_, and Luka bites his lip to stop himself from commenting.

"I think," Luka continues. "We're good on the magic part." 

"Yeah?" Miro takes a breath. "So we don't have to get married?"

"But," Luka counters, "I don't want to have custody arguments about the dogs. I missed Max." 

Miro laughs, and he reaches for Luka's wrist. "Yeah, that's not good for them."

* * *

Miro wakes up, and there's Luka cuddling three dogs in his bed, stealing all of the blankets, and he thinks he could marry this guy. He's not a difficult guy to understand. He's not nervous.

There's a lot of stuff to plan and to talk about and for agents to deal with, but for once, he feels good about this. There's a lot of things to say, too, but Miro wants this, and that's what matters.

* * *

Roope had opinions on the colors. Miro ignores him, though, because he has the flashiest fashion sense, and there will be no zebra print at his wedding. Luka, on the other hand, would probably fucking love zebra print if he got the idea, so Miro definitely does not pass the thought on. 

"Take it up with my mom," he tries, as a last line of defense. She's not the one doing a lot of it, anyway, but it's a good deflection.

"I could convince her." Roope throws his hair back, and he's a good enough friend not to make a 'your mom' joke. 

"Mavs throwback," Jalen tried to suggest, and Miro didn't know he was getting more than two teams' worth of hockey and basketball players opinions on his wedding plans, but this one was so common. Blue and green, hah. Cowboy hats, hah. Someone even suggested they could hold it in a barn and squaredance, and Miro wasn't sure if he was serious or not. "It would be sick." 

Their wedding colors aren't blue and green like the Canucks threw up on everything, despite that. Their groomsmen show up with green and blue ties, anyway. 

No one walks down the aisle, in the end. 

Luka catches his eye and winks, and he mouths, _Hei_.

"_Zdrȁvo_," Miro mutters, under his breath. He can't hide the smile.

Luka's his boy. They aren't nineteen anymore, and Miro's still getting used to it, but it makes him smile every time.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] wunderkinder](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21144506) by [somehowunbroken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/somehowunbroken/pseuds/somehowunbroken)


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